Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

These changes were introduced in the Welfare Reform Act 2012. We have always made it clear that mixed-age couples already claiming pension credit or housing benefit for pensioners immediately before 15 May will not be affected for as long as they remain in receipt of either benefit after that date. Just to be clear, there is no impact or effect on their state pension.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Were the Secretary of State to get a tax rebate she would be very surprised if she was taxed on it, but my constituent saw an abatement by 63%. Will the Department sort out the reductions to universal credit when people get tax rebates?

[Alok Sharma]

I am very happy to look at the individual case the hon. Lady raises, but, as she knows, under UC we have a taper that works: it incentivises people to take on extra hours because they get to keep more of the money that they earn.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

Yes. As I have said, this is a matter where employers need to take action, and guidance is available from HMRC. As I understand it, employers were once again reminded before Christmas that they need to get the right payment date in place.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

My constituents in this situation are still being harassed by the Department. Is the Minister going to make the change in line with the High Court judgment from 11 January or for all claims that fall into this category from the very beginning?

[Alok Sharma]

I completely understand why colleagues are asking these questions and why they want answers, but I have to repeat myself at this stage and say that the Department is considering the High Court’s judgment. I hope therefore that the hon. Lady will appreciate that it would not be appropriate for me to comment further.

Universal Credit

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Mr Campbell, it is very early in the week. I cannot put this down to the effects of hot curry, because I doubt that you have consumed any thus far. There are several days to go, and you need to remain calm. You are a very great figure in the House, and I am concerned for your wellbeing.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

We have been warning Ministers about this problem of the dates for months, so will the Minister now rule out—what is the word? [Interruption.] No! Will he rule out appealing against the court decision?

[Alok Sharma]

Let me repeat this once more. The judgment to which the hon. Lady refers came out on Friday and we are going to have to consider it carefully. We will respond in due course.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Just before I call the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), may I say to her—I think I do so with the support of the House—how sorry I was to see that her predecessor, an illustrious representative of the Bishop Auckland constituency, Mr Derek Foster, later Lord Foster, had passed away? He was well respected in this place and gave great service to it, and our sympathies go to his widow and the family.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Mr Speaker, thank you. I am sure all the people who live in Bishop Auckland will very much appreciate those sentiments.

The Secretary of State may know that five years ago 30,000 people were fined for wrongly claiming free prescriptions, but last year that figure was 1 million. That is because when people get their awards, they are not told whether they are entitled to free prescriptions. It is a simple piece of admin—will she sort it?

[Amber Rudd]

I thank the hon. Lady for drawing that to my attention. I am aware of the changes that need to be made and some of the things that have already been addressed, but I will write to her further to set out how we are addressing exactly what she raises.

Disability Support

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) and thanking the Backbench Business Committee for enabling us to hold this important debate.

I was taken aback by the roseate picture that the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant) gave us. It does not square with my experience in my constituency, and I want to outline why. The problem of cuts to disability benefit has affected a lot of my constituents very badly indeed. That is largely because, although Durham is no longer a mining area, it has a legacy of heavy industry. Healthy life expectancy across the country as a whole may be 69 years; in County Durham it is 59. That means that many people under pension age are in need of support from the social security system and need disability benefits.

One problem results from the interactions with other parts of the benefit system. Those are serious and complex. Obviously, the bedroom tax—which we debated at length in 2014—has adversely affected those people who needed a spare room for a carer in their family, which they are now financially penalised for using. Another group of people who are badly affected are the WASPI women. I had a fantastic meeting with 300 WASPI women in my constituency. Some people who turned up were hale and hearty, but a considerable number were seriously ill and had a disability. Some of them were working at the age of 15; their bodies are now worn out. The Minister must know that that is an issue because she has noted the significant increase in the number of women over 55 who have had to go on to ESA.

One woman who recently came to see me had to stop work because she had cancer and her doctor said she could no longer do a part-time job. Because her job had been part time, she was not entitled to contributory ESA. Because she has an occupational pension of £60 a week, she is not entitled to any other money from the social security system.

A family came to see me. The mother was disqualified from benefit when she moved from DLA to PIP. At the stroke of a pen she lost that benefit, her son lost carer’s allowance and they lost housing benefit. They were losing £8,000 a year. Their income was halved by the change in assessment.

Then, as my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth said, we had the problem of the Motability cuts. Everybody wants to help and support people who go out to work when they have a disability. The cuts to Motability have been one of the most destructive, futile and pointless cuts one could possibly dream up. A young woman came to see me. She had dwarfism. She had succeeded in getting a university degree and holding down a job. When her Motability was taken from her, of course her whole life was thrown into chaos. Then we had the benefit freezes, which adversely affect this group of people. We are now seeing people with disabilities and chronic illnesses being moved on to universal credit, gradually at first but there will be more in future. That means there is another group of people who will be suffering from the delays to benefit payments and pushed into debt. When Ministers talk about being fiscally responsible, having a welfare cut and the fantastic savings they have got out of the social security budget, the truth is that those savings have been achieved on the backs of people like my constituents with severe disabilities and health problems.

I want to talk in particular about the move from DLA to PIP and ESA. I cannot think of a worse-named benefit than PIP: it’s not really personal, it doesn’t give people independence and there isn’t much of a payment if they do manage to get it. There is massive confusion among the public, some of whom thought they were entitled to DLA for life. Some people who received higher-level DLA now have zero points and receive no PIP whatever. My constituency caseworker, who has dealt with hundreds of cases over the past couple of years, has an 82% success rate on appeals—82% of decisions are being overturned.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

Is my hon. Friend aware of the fact that in Wales 75% of PIP and 74% of ESA decisions were overturned on appeal in 2017? Does that not lead to the conclusion that this is an utterly dysfunctional and shambolic system, which is a huge waste of resources and taxpayers’ money? It is not only callous and cruel—it is not value for money.

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend expresses it very well. I did not know the statistics relating to Wales. Wales and Durham are obviously having a very similar experience, which is perhaps not surprising as Wales is another area where people are coping with a heavy industry legacy.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

In Swansea, some of the most vulnerable people are going through the most dreadful anguish and anxiety. They are chronically ill, yet they think they will not end up with benefits. Is that not part of a wider strategy to squeeze the poorest and most vulnerable to pay for the bankers’ greed, which led to the 2008 financial crisis?

[Helen Goodman]

It is extraordinary that the Government have been able to find the money to cut inheritance tax for the richest, but they cannot find money for people with disabilities and mental health problems.

As my hon. Friends have said, the stress and distress caused, particularly to people with mental health problems, are a serious problem. People are put into a situation of tension because they do not know when or whether they are going to be reassessed. I have constituents who are concerned for their family members’ wellbeing, because they get so anxious and cannot face the work capability assessments.

Let me now turn to the problem of ESA. The hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock talked about how we need to encourage and support people back into work. That is indeed true, but the fact is that, from the point of view of an employer, employing people with disabilities means higher employee liability insurance, it very often means adjustments at work and there is simply no incentive for people—[Interruption.] The Minister is saying, “Rubbish” from a sedentary position. Would he like to come to the Dispatch Box and tell me why that is rubbish?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Justin Tomlinson)]

Both as a Member of Parliament in my constituency office and as somebody who ran a business for 10 years, I employed disabled people and I benefited. It takes good employers to have a wide-ranging workforce. If you get it right it is a win-win for everybody. I do not recognise the situation the hon. Lady sets out.

[Helen Goodman]

I am glad the Minister did as he did, but we do also hear from people who cannot get jobs because of their disabilities and from employers who say it is too expensive to make the adjustments.

[Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)]

On the point about it being too expensive, does the hon. Lady recognise the support to work schemes that the Government have introduced and which now can reach up to £57,000 per employee, which can help to negate some of those costs and support disabled people in work?

[Helen Goodman]

If those schemes were so good, the proportion of people with disabilities in work would have gone up, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth, who opened the debate, pointed out, it has not increased one jot in the last eight years.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is right. She will recall that the gap between the employment rate for disabled people and the overall average was falling steadily until 2010, and she will know that it has flatlined ever since. Does she share my disappointment that the Government no longer have a target for reducing the disability employment gap—the target initially set by David Cameron but since abandoned, unfortunately?

[Helen Goodman]

My right hon. Friend, who had a proud record as a Minister tackling these issues in the previous Labour Government, points out the twists and turns of policy. It is patently ridiculous for Ministers, following the UN report, to be complacent in this area. There is no room for complacency.

I wish to illustrate the problem of ESA with some stories of constituents of mine. Mrs M, 63, had to stop working as a carer because of ill health. She was signed off by her GP. She has Paget’s disease and a tumour on her leg. She sees an oncologist. She needs a new hip. She is seeing a surgeon because she needs a new knee. She has heart arrhythmia on the left side and sees a cardiologist. She was refused ESA at assessment and had to apply for JSA, and she was advised to apply for jobs as a roofer and bouncer or to consider retraining as a social worker. Obviously, we supported her appeal, and ESA was awarded. It is patently ridiculous that people have to go through this sort of thing.

Mr C, 60, had previously been awarded DLA following a series of strokes. He was transferred to PIP in January 2018 and awarded a high rate for both care and mobility. He put in an ESA assessment request in September 2018, but he got confused because all his medical information had been sent to DWP for the PIP assessment, and he was then expected to pay again for the medical evidence for the ESA application. Why can the Department not sort out its administration, instead of putting these financial burdens on to our vulnerable constituents?

Mr I, 64, was previously awarded PIP and was reassessed in 2018. The award was unchanged—eight points for mobility because he cannot walk 50 metres unaided—but his ESA assessment in October 2018 failed because he could move 200 metres using a wheelchair. He is currently awaiting a mandatory reconsideration. One of the confusions is that people cannot understand how they can be awarded a high award in the PIP assessment but then be required to work under the ESA assessment. It does not stack up. One reason it does not stack up is the amateurish and unqualified nature of the staff doing the assessments. This has been a problem from the off. Ministers have had eight years to sort it out, but they have failed.

Let me tell the story of Mr J. Mr J is autistic and has various mental impairments. He had been receiving DLA, but was moved to PIP. He applied for ESA and was placed in the support group. He was unaware that his ESA was contribution-based rather than income-based. When he went to the chemist and was given the prescription form, he ticked the box because he had previously been entitled to free prescriptions, but that was no longer the case. A fine was issued, which the family had to pay. Mr J’s mother had to intervene and become the appointee to deal with the issue, as Mr J was plainly not capable of doing so himself.

Mr J is not a one-off. He is not unusual. Five years ago, 30,000 people were fined for falsely saying that they were entitled to NHS prescriptions. Last year the figure was 1 million, and it was 1 million because the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Work and Pensions are not properly co-ordinated. The Department for Work and Pensions does not give people the information that they need when they receive their benefits, and the Department of Health and Social Care is hounding them for money. For the Minister, on a nice ministerial salary of £98,000 a year, a £100 fine might not be a lot, but for people with incomes of £100-£150, it is a whole week’s income.

This is a complete disgrace. It is utterly careless. We have been raising the issue with Ministers for the last six months and they have still not sorted it out. Of course I am not saying that Ministers set out to fine a million people—that would be a ridiculous assertion—but it is sometimes culpable to be careless, and this Government are careless of disabled people.

Universal Credit

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms McVey]

We have accepted all but one of them, and in the one we did not accept we have been more generous, if you can believe it. So we have accepted nearly all of them, except one, and that one we have been more generous towards.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

A constituent of mine recovering from cancer came to see me. She had literally no money for food because at the moment UC is so badly designed that those whose pay date coincides with their claim date get no money at all in two months of the year. Before the roll-out, will the Secretary of State correct this design fault?

[Ms McVey]

In those instances we are working with the individual and then helping them with a manual workaround to make sure they are back on benefit and we are supporting those people. As I have said, it is never going to be a system that is right 100% of the time for 100% of people, but it is working the vast majority of the time for the vast majority of people. That is why people are saying up and down the country, “This is working; I’m getting into work.” In fact, this is the one single thing that claimants say to me who have been unemployed before—eight years ago—and are now coming back to the job centre. They say that because of the scare stories from the Opposition, they have been frightened to go into—

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker—

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

I have corresponded with the hon. Gentleman about one specific case. There are circumstances in which payment is still made after the death of a claimant and where payments have continued for two subsequent assessment periods, such as when the individual was in a couple. However, I note the hon. Gentleman’s point and will look into the policy.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

A connected problem might be that the Department does not tell people whether they are entitled to prescriptions when their UC claim is awarded. Will the Department please start doing that, because several of my constituents have been in touch in deep distress because of the fivefold fines that they have been forced to pay?

[Alok Sharma]

We do not want anybody to be in distress. If colleagues on either side of the House have specific cases, they should bring them to Ministers. We hear a lot of general commentary, but we would like to help individuals, so please bring us those specific cases.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms McVey]

It has always been about everybody working together. This Government, and this Department in particular, want to make sure that we step outside the silos and work across Departments and that work coaches stand outside what they need to do to make sure that they are reaching into people’s lives to help them progress.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

What is the Minister going to do about employers such as the one in my constituency who sacked a lot of young people without paying them the wages they were owed, with the result that one of them—a pregnant woman—ate nothing but Smash for three weeks?

Private Sector Pensions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms McVey]

I can indeed state that that is the case, but anyone who is concerned about a pension should call the free hotline. The number is 0800 756 1012. I know that my hon. Friend is a great supporter of employees and businesses in her local area.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State does not seem to have grasped the fact that the decision to carry on paying dividends and to boost the bonuses of the board while running up a pensions deficit was made by the board itself. What will she do to prevent that from happening again?

[Ms McVey]

I do understand the gravity of what happened, but there is one thing that we never seek to do in the House. In 2004, after much discussion, we asked an independent arm’s length body to look into these matters. When there have been misdemeanours and irresponsible behaviour and things have gone wrong, we announce that investigations are under way, but we are not the investigator. What we do is legislate to ensure that people are brought to account—and if they have done something wrong, my goodness, we need to bring them to account.

Pension Equality for Women

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I am very pleased to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Thelma Walker), who spoke beautifully. I, too, am a 1950s woman, but I am speaking in the debate because this issue affects 6,300 of my constituents. We are all in favour of equalisation, but we need a proper transitional period. That is what these women have not been given and that is why it is unfair. They had no time to prepare, no time to save and their legitimate expectations have not been met. Some have lost significant amounts of money, even though they have been paying national insurance contributions for many years. Ministers say that this is because life expectancy is rising, and it is, but it is no use to a person born in 1953 to know that a baby born now will live to the age of 83. When they were born, the average life expectancy was 72. Let us look at the differences in life expectancy in different parts of the country, and even in my constituency. In the most well-off ward, the healthy life expectancy is 71, but in Woodhouse Close and Shildon the healthy life expectancy is 55.

When I started work in 1979, I expected to retire next year aged 60, but now I have to work until 2024. The big difference between me and my constituents is that I started work aged 21, having stayed on at school and gone on to university. Many of my constituents started work on leaving school aged 15. Ruth started aged 15 and worked in local government and health. She has three children and six grandchildren. She thought she was retiring at 60 to look after her dear old mum. Now she has to go back to work to sustain her husband, her children and her mother. She asks, physically, emotionally and financially, where is the time, health and energy going to come from? Shawn is in the same situation. She has had three jobs to keep herself and her family. Aged 15, Pamela left school on the Friday and went to work on the Monday. Jane—the same. She worked 70 hours a week from the age of 15. She finished at 54 with a disability. Jane and Pamela exemplify those people who are being moved on to employment and support allowance. They are using up their savings, which they had put by for their retirement. They are not exceptional or unusual. The number of women aged over 60 on ESA has shot up fourfold.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making some very powerful points that other Members have not yet made, especially with regard to women in the north-east where many of us are from. It is probably the same for Wales and other industrial heartlands. Women who have worked for almost 50 years are going to be in the position of having a very short life expectancy after they retire. Does she agree that that is so unfair?

[Helen Goodman]

I do. My overall message to Ministers is that they should stop looking at actuarial tables and start listening to the way lives are lived. I have more examples. Chris wanted to stay on at school and get more education, but her father made her go out to work aged 15. Sue, Jane, Diane, Judith and Jane all say the same thing. Jane has lost £48,000 through this and Dot says, quite simply, “I am so tired.”

We need to be honest about this issue and look at it in a radical way. My Front-Bench colleague made many sensible suggestions, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris). We need to think in terms of a pensions system that takes account of when people started work. Obviously, a person who started work at 15 should not have to work 10 years longer to get their pension than a person who probably has better health and probably has an easier job, having carried on with their education into their mid-20s.