State Pension Age: Women

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that, without a shadow of a doubt, life expectancy has increased in all parts of the country and in all socioeconomic groups over the past 30 years. I refer him to the Cridland report, which accepts the situation that has existed for the past 30 years, and the change that has been made.

Developments in policy have included the Pensions Act 1995, as well as the Pensions Act 2007, passed when the Labour party was in power. It is a shame that the Labour party is now scrapping the fiscal prudence that it seemed to demonstrate with the 2007 Act by now revoking its desire to increase the pension age beyond 66. Under the coalition, action was taken in the Pensions Act 2011 to increase the pension age as a result of enhanced life expectancy.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

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[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I despair, because having stood at this Dispatch Box, led for the Opposition in Westminster Hall debates and worked on the Pension Schemes Bill, with the matter before us taking centre stage, I have spoken about this issue, like a lot of other Members, many times. However, it is not the Scottish National party that I blame for that, nor is it members of the Labour party, and it is definitely not the ’50s-born women who have been energetic, consistent and strong in pushing this issue.

The Conservative party is the reason we are debating this topic yet again, but we know that many Conservative MPs pledged their support for these women by making speeches, by taking up photo opportunities, and by becoming members of the all-party group. A few months ago, I stood here and highlighted the fact that there were no fewer than 37 of them. Among them are the hon. Members for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), for Eastleigh (Mims Davies), for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan), for Salisbury (John Glen), for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones), for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng), for North Cornwall (Scott Mann), for Colchester (Will Quince) and for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan)—that is just nine of them.

This weak Government continue to stick their head in the sand and hope that the issue will go away. I do not know how many more times I or anyone else has to say this to the Minister: the issue is not going away.

I am frustrated and impatient that we are yet again debating this topic when the Government could do something to fix the problem right now. I do not understand the politics of why the Government refuse to address it. They angered the older generation during the general election, and look what happened: their huge predicted majority failed to materialise, and now they are hanging on by the skin of their teeth.

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend is making a very good case. As a 1950s woman, I am extremely sympathetic to the 4,000 WASPI women in my constituency. Does my hon. Friend agree that what the Government have failed to understand is that some of these women have been working since they were 15?

[Alex Cunningham]

That is most certainly the case, and the Government need to understand that. My wife herself has been working since that young age.

For some reason, the Government persist in pushing huge numbers of ’50s-born women into financial difficulty and distress. It is time for the Government to put their pride aside and do what is right.

Universal Credit Roll-out

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 16th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Michael Tomlinson]

The hon. Lady intervened on me during our last debate on this subject. It is always a pleasure to lock horns with her in a constructive fashion. The last time she challenged me, she said, “How about those young people in poverty?” I did not have the figures on poverty to hand at the time but, if the hon. Lady looks at them, she will see that there are 600,000 fewer people—I will check that figure—in absolute poverty this year. Under the old system, for the constituent I mentioned, it did not pay for him to go to work. Under universal credit, the principle should be that work always pays.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Michael Tomlinson]

In one moment.

We remember the fiasco of tax credits, with £7.3 billion of overpayments, and we remember the misery that was caused. The hon. Member for Hove referred to the speed with which universal credit has been rolled out. Actually, the lesson to be learned is not to roll out a scheme in a big-bang fashion, as happened with tax credits, when £2.7 billion then had to be clawed back from the poorest and most vulnerable in society. I was a new Member of Parliament in 2015, when people were still feeling the repercussions of that old system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I am pleased to take part in this debate because in my constituency, 10,700 households will be moved on to universal credit. That is 21,000 people, which is almost a quarter of my constituents. On 13 December, those with new claims and changes of circumstance will be moved across to universal credit, and over Christmas many people will face a six-week gap in their income. That is not so much a merry Christmas as a Victorian Christmas that even Scrooge did not think of.

Ministers have banged on about advance payments, but let us look at what that means in practice. Suppose that a single disabled person with a payment of £400 a month takes an advance of £200 to pay their rent. If all goes according to plan they will then have their payments abated, so that their income over the next four and a half months will be £200, £320, £320 and £360. In other words, instead of an income of £1,800 over that period, it will be £1,200. That is not a “wait”; it is a cut, and many will feel that over Christmas it is the cruellest cut.

Seven years ago in my constituency there were no food banks, but after seven years of Tory Government we now have seven food banks. Labour Members have spoken previously about the need to address free school meals, and in my opinion every child in a UC family should receive them. Now, however, to add to the loss of income, during that six-week period children will not receive free school meals either. Ministers talk about preparing people for work, but this is an in-work benefit. In my constituency, 4,500 of the households that are being moved on to universal credit—that is 40%—contain people who are already in work and have jobs.

[Vicky Ford]

My understanding is that if a child received free school meals before, they will continue to receive them. It is only for those who are new to the benefit system that there may be a delay.

[Helen Goodman]

I am sorry to inform the hon. Lady that that is not the case for new claimants and those whose circumstances have changed.

I am alarmed at what is happening to women in low-paid work. Many are trying, with great difficulty, to do their best to balance their need to earn an income with their responsibilities for collecting their children from school and looking after them properly. They might work 20 hours a week to get the right balance, but the Government are now going to employ advisers to harass them to increase their hours. When Labour was in power, we had different rules for single parents from those for other families. It seems to me that the Government are trying not to help lone parents, but to grind them down and grind down their children as well.

[Vicky Ford]

I remember under the Labour Government that single mothers came to me who were unable to continue work because they were better off on benefits. Does the hon. Lady agree that the system of universal credit is to help people move into work, rather than be better off on benefits?

[Helen Goodman]

I am sorry but the hon. Lady is wrong. I took through the statutory instruments on work conditionality myself, and when we left government, people were always £40 a week better off in work than not in work. Those are the facts.

Women fleeing domestic violence are in an even worse situation. When they arrive at the refuge, they have to register their change of address as a change of circumstance, so they will be in the vanguard of those who have a six-week gap in their income. It may even mean that some do not flee violent partners because they are worried about the effect.

In Bishop Auckland, huge preparations are being made for the roll-out of universal credit. The council and housing associations are employing more people—unlike, I am sorry to say, the jobcentres, which should be employing more people. One housing association is increasing its provisions for bad debt fourfold. Money that would have gone to building new homes is now going to deal with this Government-induced crisis in the housing system.

Three months ago I asked to attend one of the digital courses to see how people are supported by jobcentres. That is a major issue in my constituency because we have very bad broadband in the rural areas, and high levels of digital exclusion. Ministers must bear in mind that 5 million people in this country have never sent an email, and those are predominantly people on low incomes—the very people affected by this change to universal credit. We raised that point with Ministers five years ago, and it still has not been sorted out. Some single men who have already made a claim told me that people are timed out after 45 minutes if they cannot complete the claim, but it is difficult to complete in that time because there is no written guidance to tell people what documents they have to produce and scan in.

I am not saying that the problems with this system are only administrative because there are fundamental problems with universal credit, the first of which being that George Osborne took £3.5 billion out of the system. The Government refuse to recognise that people need these payments, and because of that refusal, rates are too low, payment gaps too long, and tapers too high. Let us pause and fix the system.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

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[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

I am pleased to contribute to this debate—I have been looking at proto-plans for universal credit that go back about five years, and it is a pleasure to work with the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), who is also a friend, on the Work and Pensions Committee.

Let us go back to where this all began and the reason why, in principle, we have cross-party agreement on universal credit. The previous system was not good enough. It was set up with good intentions, and it was a way of trying to take people out of poverty by giving them handouts. However, the way it was set up meant that many people were discouraged from taking on more work, which inhibited their ability to move on in life, improve their situations, and support their family. Universal credit was born out of that realisation, and from a desire to build a welfare system that would slowly remove benefits as people moved into work, and actively encourage people to take more hours and be better off.

We also want to create a system in which the world of life out of work mirrors the world of life in work. That means that people are in work to find work, and there is an expectation that they will look for work and sign a contract to that effect—the claimant commitment. It means that benefits will be paid on a monthly basis, so that when people move into work and monthly employment, they will be ready for that. I am afraid I cannot accept the argument that some people will never be able to cope on monthly payments. I feel that is extremely insulting to many people.

[Helen Goodman]

indicated dissent.

[Alex Burghart]

I disagree with the hon. Lady. It is.

We now have a system coming into being—

[Helen Goodman]

indicated dissent.

[Alex Burghart]

The hon. Lady can shake her head, but it is true. It is insulting to people to say that they will never be able to cope on monthly payments. I challenge her to have that conversation with the many people who are looking for work, because they would be insulted by it. [Interruption.] It is unfortunate that she laughs at that because it is true. [Interruption.] Look, this is a very insulting way of carrying on.

[Helen Goodman]

Anybody can manage on a monthly payment of £2,000, but managing on a monthly payment of £500 is rather more difficult.

[Alex Burghart]

The hon. Lady will recognise that there are lots of people who do manage to do that. [Interruption.] I have had enough of this Opposition.

I am delighted to say that under the universal credit system there is personal budgeting support. No one on the Opposition Benches has referred to it, but it offers money advice to help people with a four-week payment and offers alternative payment arrangements so they can have their money paid direct to their landlord. I am very sorry to hear that the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) found that that was not working well in her jobcentre. I have spoken to people in my jobcentre and I was pleased to see that they were completely on top of how the system worked.

Within universal credit, of course, there are a lot of problems, which have been talked about today and on other days, emanating from the long wait people experience when coming into the system. At the start of the process, far too many people have been waiting for far too long. The Select Committee report has drawn on that. Since the first roll-out phase, however, a number of improvements have been made thanks to the test and learn system. The landlord portal was very favourably received by people who gave evidence to the Committee, saying it would greatly help. We have also recently seen the initial evidence interview, the once and done process, which means that more information can be brought into the system straight away. These measures are all making improvements. I say to Opposition Members that we cannot learn unless we test.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Universal credit is helping people to get into work and to progress in work. It is also clear that people on universal credit are spending more time looking for work than those on legacy benefits. It is really important that we all work to ensure the success of universal credit. We believe it will result in 250,000 more jobs—something worth achieving.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

What the Secretary of State has repeated again this afternoon falls into the trap of treating everyone on universal credit as if they were out of work. Surely one big issue is the problem of applying conditionality to people who already have jobs?

[Mr Gauke]

The point about universal credit is that it operates when people are out of work and when they are in work. What we will not get is what happens with the legacy system: people worrying about working extra hours in case they find that their claim is closed. That holds people back from progressing. I believe that in-work conditionality has a role to play within our system to ensure that people progress. There is an issue in terms of people who are in work but are none the less receiving substantial support from the taxpayer. We want them to be able to progress to be less dependent on the state. That is what universal credit will deliver.

Universal Credit Roll-out

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Michael Tomlinson]

I, too, enjoyed working with the hon. Lady in a cross-party spirit on the European Scrutiny Committee in the last Parliament, and I look forward to doing so again. I have been told—I hope the Minister is able to confirm this—that 250,000 additional people will be helped into work as a result of this policy.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Michael Tomlinson]

No, I will not.

The Government’s response should be to ensure that universal credit succeeds and has the transformative potential to get people into work and to ensure that they stay in work. The Government should continue to test, to learn and to rectify during the gradual roll-out.

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[Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)]

I am grateful to have caught your eye, Mr Speaker; I am conscious that I spoke in the recent debate on the Government’s response to Supply day debates and in the debate last week on universal credit. I recognise that in this place repetition is not frowned on, and that hesitation and deviation are positively encouraged in some quarters, but I shall do my utmost not to try the House’s patience.

With the greatest of respect to the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), I question the wording of the motion, which asks us to debate the Government’s response to

“the decision of the House”

on universal credit. The House knows what the hon. Lady means—I know what she means—and I am not interested in silly semantic arguments, but this does get to the core of the matter. The Commons expressed a view, as you wisely said in response to the points of order after last week’s debate, Mr Speaker. It gave its advice to the Government on the roll-out of universal credit. However, the House cannot, on the basis of an Opposition day non-legislative motion for debate, take a decision on a matter of Government policy.

As we discussed at length in the previous debate under Standing Order No. 24, and as I believe was agreed among Government and Opposition Members, declamatory resolutions proposed for Opposition day debates are not and cannot be binding on the Government. That constitutional convention was entrenched by the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, the principle of which was supported in the Labour and Liberal Democrat manifestos in 2010. When that Act was last debated, three years ago yesterday, the Opposition spokesman at the time, the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), spoke in its favour and said that the Labour party continued to support it.

There is no constitutional requirement for the Government to respond to resolutions of the nature we are discussing if that is what the Opposition choose to table for Supply day debates. If the Government choose to respond, they have to determine when and exactly how, particularly if there are fiscal consequences to any actions they determine. Part of the role of the House is to hold the Government to account, so I do not think that last week’s debate was in any way fruitless or a waste of time. In the immediate term, the Government were held to account through the Secretary of State’s responding to 17 interventions. By my count, in a much shorter speech this afternoon, my hon. Friend the Minister for Employment replied to 11 interventions. He was held to account by this House.

I have absolutely no doubt that Labour’s talented Front-Bench spokespersons will do their utmost and use all their wiles to ensure that the Government’s decisions on universal credit are drawn to the electorate’s attention. Conservative Members are comfortable with the roll-out, the time we are taking and the way we are presenting it to the country. Ultimately, the electorate will decide. They are seeing the Opposition’s view and the Government’s view, and that is one role of the House.

I am comfortable with the position that our Government are taking in implementing the changes. That is partly because when I talk to staff at my local jobcentre, expecting the usual litany of failure that accompanies IT projects from all Governments, I hear enthusiasm and positivity about the universal credit system and how responsive it is. I am pleased that the Government have already proved themselves similarly responsive, with 50% of new claimants now securing advances, the new landlord portal and the consistent improvement in the time taken to make payments. There may be other measures that the Government can take to bolster the success of the system, but to my mind they would be wholly wrong to pause the roll-out of a system that reduces complexity, increases flexibility and improves employment outcomes for the recipients.

[Helen Goodman]

Conservative Members have talked a lot about improving work incentives. I shall not go over the history, but I have constituents who say things such as:

“My own personal position is that of a single parent carer to my disabled child. I can’t work as he has very high and complex needs… Quite frankly the rollout of universal credit is terrifying”—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Lady’s eloquence is equalled only by her length. Interventions must be brief.

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[Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)]

A policy should be founded on its vision and its values. The idea that work should always pay is clearly a good value, and many people across the House agree with that. The system should be easy to understand as those accessing it should be able to do so without any challenges or barriers in their way. Simplifying the system from six benefits down to one achieves that aim. People should be able to increase or decrease their hours as the work or the requirements change. It should be quite straightforward for people to increase their hours and for employers to give more hours and more work—if that is what they want to do—so that people can get more experience and there is more reason for employers to give more training and for people to gain greater qualifications. That allows progression and, perhaps, promotion in the workplace, which is very good for those individuals, for the society around them and for the businesses employing them.

[Helen Goodman]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Green]

I will not give way; time is tight.

The Government are delivering for the poorest. Periods of Labour government have always resulted in an increase in unemployment. From 1997 to 2010, unemployment went from 2.1 million to 2.5 million. Unemployment has dropped to below 1.5 million under this Government.

Universal Credit Roll-out

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams]

The hon. Gentleman is pre-empting my speech, but I will happily propose exactly what we would like to do in conjunction with the current Government, whose programme this is.

From the start, there were a number of serious design flaws, which the Work and Pensions Committee, of which I was a member, raised in 2012. They included, first, the fact that UC applications would be “digital by default”; in other words, applications could only be made online. There are still several issues with that, not least the assumption that everyone is computer-literate or has ready access to getting online. We all remember the scene in “I, Daniel Blake” where somebody who had not used a computer before was trying to do so, and we saw the real stress and difficulties he found.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

rose—

[Debbie Abrahams]

I am sorry but I am not going to give way again, as I must try to press on.

Secondly, there were concerns that UC payments would be made monthly, in arrears, and paid only to the main earner of each household, so women, as second earners, are automatically discriminated against in this process; it was also quite a radical change, with rental payments going directly to the household and not the landlord. Thirdly, there were considerable doubts about the use of so-called real-time information, which was meant to ensure that information from employers to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs would allow the Department for Work and Pensions to calculate quickly what people in low-paid employment would be entitled to from UC. The reliability and validity of this data exchange was another key concern. I believe there is a DWP RTI issues group, so there are clearly still problems. Finally, the Government said that disabled people would not be financially worse off under UC, but because the severe disability premium payment has not been incorporated into UC, it is an effective loss of up to £62.45 a week for a single person—more than £3,200 a year.

All that was in 2012, but a number of other issues emerged in the following couple of years—universal jobmatch, ballooning costs and of course several delays. One of the most worrying issues revealed in the January 2015 UC regulations was that people in low-paid work on UC will now be subject to in-work conditionality. So, for example, someone who is one of 1 million or so people working on a low-paid, zero hours contract, with different hours from one week to the next, will have to demonstrate to their Jobcentre Plus adviser that they are trying to work 35 hours a week and if they fail to do that to that person’s satisfaction, they can and will be sanctioned. For Members who are unfamiliar with this concept, those people will have their social security payments stopped for a minimum of a month.

Fast forwarding to the 2015 summer Budget, the then Chancellor announced that cuts would be made to the so-called universal credit work allowances, which are how much someone can earn before UC support starts to be reduced. For example, a couple with two children claiming housing costs had their work allowances cut from £222 a month to £192 a month. In addition, approximately 900,000 families with more than two children could not receive support for third or subsequent children.

Personal Independence Payment: Regulations

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) has given a very moving account of how one of her constituents was affected and, unfortunately, took their own life last week.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government seem to be in a place where the NHS is catching up with the need to treat mental health conditions properly, but other public services, whether they be the Department for Work and Pensions or the Prison Service, are simply stuck in the past, and that this must change?

[Debbie Abrahams]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The situation makes an absolute mockery of the claim that there is parity of esteem. She rightly mentions what the NHS is trying to do, but sadly there are still issues with treatment for mental health conditions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on taking that training, which is very important. She is right that more employers should act. We are now providing a range of support to help employers to recruit and retain people with mental health conditions, including the Disability Confident campaign and the mental health support service in the Access to Work scheme, which many firms and those who suffer from mental health conditions find useful.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State should beware of being so enthusiastic that he ignores the real needs of people who cannot go to work. I had an email this morning from one of my constituents saying that her husband had taken his life on Friday. He first came to us in 2016 when his award of employment and support allowance was under review. Despite his doctor’s protest, he was made to have a face-to-face assessment. We sought an extension of the six-month award; that was refused. At that point, he was so stressed that he attempted suicide. The PIP award was reviewed again in January. Will the Secretary of State please ensure that when doctors say that people with mental health conditions should not have face-to-face assessments, they do not have face-to-face assessments?

[Damian Green]

The case that the hon. Lady raises is clearly dreadful. I am sure that the whole House will want to send condolences to the family and friends of her constituent, particularly his widow. We are, of course, not just investing more in mental health than ever before—£11 billion this year—but succeeding specifically in improving clinical assessments. More clinical expertise is now available to the assessors who look at individual cases. As she will know, we have now ended reassessment for those who have conditions that can only stay the same or get worse. We are taking steps to try to minimise those effects.

Vinovium House

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 8th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I am very pleased to have this opportunity to raise the proposed closure of Vinovium House, the office in Bishop Auckland that administers part of the child maintenance system, with the consequent loss of between 85 and 100 jobs. I have tabled early-day motion 1,001, which hon. Members are most welcome to sign.

To set the debate in context, the reforms to child support introduced by the Tory-led Government in the last Parliament were highly controversial, appearing to rely on good will, which is sadly lacking in all too many cases. None the less, it was agreed that the administration of the old system should continue, so that children could receive their legal entitlements. According to the Department for Work and Pensions December 2016 statistics, there are 1.1 million cases in the Child Support Agency system, and arrears now totalling £3.4 billion. It is vital for those million families—probably 1.5 million children—that this money is recovered and paid to them.

There is no published plan for how the debt cases currently administered at Vinovium House will be administered if the closure goes ahead. The team at Vinovium House had secured the debt work until 2020. In a four-year programme, surely it does not make financial sense to relocate and retrain staff to undertake that work if the current staff will no longer do the job. What exactly is the Department’s plan? How does it intend to run it, or is the plan to let the old child support system wither on the vine, irrespective of the impact on the 1 million families receiving their money?

The staff are extremely well respected. They were a top five office when they administered incapacity benefit. They are currently the highest performing office. They have the highest engagement score. They provide telephone cover from 8 o’clock in the morning until 8 o’clock at night—hours that are not covered in other offices. The telephone system went down when the announcement was made, and the entire national system crashed as it was unable to cope with the volume of calls without those staff. This does not bode well for the future. Child poverty is increasing under this Government, and further delays in Department for Work and Pensions systems for child support will undoubtedly tip some families over the edge.

In correspondence with me, the Minister for Employment said that he has conducted an equality impact assessment. I find that difficult to believe given that 69 of the staff are women and 14 are men. There are also support staff. The one-to-one interviews currently being conducted are a sham. Staff are asked to say whether they want to be transferred to other jobs or to leave on voluntary redundancy, but they are not being told where else they might work.

[Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)]

Quite a few of the staff who work at Vinovium House live in Sedgefield. I have had several emails from staff who have a deep anxiety about the way they have been treated, their futures and where they might be transferred to. This is not just an issue for Bishop Auckland and Sedgefield. The staff live all over County Durham, and a lot of families will be affected.

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is a lot of anxiety, and I will read out an email from someone who works there to explain to the Minister why:

“On the day the closure was announced to us, we were told there would be an option between a job if we were prepared to travel, or an exit package if not—a small lifeline to me that may have cushioned the closure up to my pension age, but the next day the package offer was revoked with a statement that failure to accept a compulsory transfer could result in disciplinary action.”

Will the Minister please tell us exactly what is going on? What offers are being made to people?

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing this issue to the House for consideration. Surely, if someone has a contract of employment with a Department and that contract is changed, the rights of the individual must be retained. Therefore, should not the option of a package to leave still be on the table? Should not the Government endorse and deliver that earlier commitment?

[Helen Goodman]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. I agree, which is why I want to know what is going on in the Department for Work and Pensions.

The underlying issues are travel times and costs, the lack of affordable childcare and the fact that most people who work at Vinovium House combine their job with some caring responsibilities. Many work part-time close to home, as they have caring responsibilities for children or elderly parents. The Tory party claims to be the party of the family. This change will adversely affect at least 85 families and will have a devastating impact.

Let me give one example. I talked to a woman who was very young—well, I think she was very young because she was in her 30s—and a widow with two children. Unfortunately, her partner died a year ago. At the moment, she drops her children off at school, gets to work by 9 o’clock and works until 6 o’clock, but she is given time to pick her children up at 3.30 pm. If she has to go to work in another town or another place, there is no possibility that this arrangement can continue. Her children are beyond three and four years old, when free childcare is available, but are too young to leave at home after school.

One thing Ministers need to bear in mind is the pay. The highest full-time pay is £18,000, and many of these people are on £12,000. They simply cannot afford to take home less, because they have to fork out on travel costs or childcare. There is also little other office work in the area, which is why the DWP is a valuable employer.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) suggested, a third of these people come from other villages round about. There is currently a bus connection into Bishop, but if the Bishop office closes, there is no guarantee people will be able to get transport onwards to other locations. The Department’s Darlington and Peterlee offices are already scheduled for closure. I strongly suggest that the Minister’s officials stop looking on Google Maps and that she send them up to the north to start looking at the geographical problems. Let them try to get a bus at 8 o’clock in the morning to Washington, near Sunderland, or to Newcastle, and get back in time to collect children from school at 3 o’clock. It is frankly impossible; it is a five-hour trip, including eight different buses. Of course, there is the massive devastation of public transport. What is being proposed is intolerable for these families.

There are many unanswered questions. The DWP guideline for staff travel times is one hour. How many sites are available for the staff to transfer to that are within an hour’s travel by public transport? What happens to people who received travel costs for three years if they go to work at another site? What happens after that? I suppose they will have to pay for themselves. Is there capacity in other offices nearby to take on these workers? Will they need to be retrained? What will that cost?

I am extremely grateful to the Public and Commercial Services Union for arranging for me to visit the office in February. I met a large number of staff, and they said things like this: “My husband is due to leave the armed forces later this year, so that could be two of us without a job,” “I moved here specifically to be close to my elderly parents,” “There is no childcare for children over 10-years-old,” “I have a child with disabilities, which results in lots of appointments. I couldn’t manage to meet them if I had to travel further afield,” “I’m dependent on my mum for childcare. If I had to leave earlier to travel further, she might not be able to manage, because she is dependent on getting to my children on the bus,” “I’m on maternity leave. I’ve worked here for nine years, and my future is up in the air. Will I have a job to come back to?” “I live in the Dales, where there is limited and often no public transport. How could I travel further afield? If I finished work in Newcastle at half-past seven, it would be physically impossible for me to get home at night,” and “I have a child starting university in September. How can I afford to support my child if I lose my job?”

The Minister must understand that these are significant problems for people. These people are not simply cogs in a machine or units of production; these are real people with real families. Many of the staff said that, in effect, they had to put their lives on hold, because they do not know what the upshot is going to be. They have had to cancel their holidays and things like that.

I want to propose a better way forward to the Minister. Historically, the jobcentre was in Vinovium House, and it would be much better in the long term if, instead of the medical assessment team moving to the jobcentre in the marketplace, the jobcentre people moved to Vinovium House and held on to the lease with the CSA people. There is already information and communications technology, telephones and security. That move would be much more cost-effective than what is being proposed at the moment.

There is, of course, another aspect: the impact on the rest of the town. I have had a letter from the Auckland Castle Trust. I do not know whether the Minister is aware that a philanthropist called Jonathan Ruffer has put at least £50 million into restoring and regenerating Auckland castle, with a view to building up the tourist industry. The Auckland Castle Trust says that it has moved into the upper five floors of Vinovium House, and it requires that office space until 2020. It has been told that if the DWP moves, it will also have to move, and that will cost it a great deal of money. If it has to spend money moving, it will have less money for the regeneration project that it is undertaking.

The DWP decision is doubly bad; it threatens unemployment for the 80 people employed by the DWP, and at exactly the moment when the trust is bending every sinew to regenerate the town, the DWP is pulling the rug from under it. The staff are 100% committed to the local area. They have done a lot of work for local charities, and they have counted up how much they spend every week, which is about £2,000. We know from that that local shops will be extremely badly affected and there will be job losses there, too.

I think the Government should take a more holistic approach. The problem is that Whitehall lives in departmental silos, but people do not. I understand the pressure to save money, but I do not understand why Bishop Auckland is always at the sharp end. We have lost our magistrates court. We have lost our driving test centre. We have lost an HMRC officer. For once, if there is going to be centralisation, could it be into Bishop Auckland instead? I simply do not believe that the Minister can find a place where rents are cheaper than they are in Bishop; that is not credible. People in Bishop Auckland feel very strongly about this, and thousands are currently collecting signatures for a petition. As a hard-working, long-serving staff member said to me,

“It’s become about the building not the service and the staff”.

I am sure the Minister will agree that that is not the right approach.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Delivery (Caroline Nokes)]

I thank the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) for securing this debate. Its subject, as she has passionately and ably outlined, is Vinovium House in Bishop Auckland, one of the Department’s back-of-house processing sites for child maintenance claims. From the outset of the debate, I want to be clear that the services provided by the Department for Work and Pensions matter to millions of people every single day. But for the Department to continue to deliver its critical services and support across the country, it is vital that arrangements are put in place to protect the long-term sustainability of our services.

There is near-universal agreement that the Department for Work and Pensions needs to continue to provide excellent services for its customers while providing good value for money for the taxpayer. Reducing the amount of under-utilised space that the Department occupies is an excellent way of making sure that the Department is delivering value for money, both for those using its services and for the taxpayer.

On 31 March next year, DWP’s 20-year contract, which covers the majority of its current property portfolio of more than 900 sites, will expire. That portfolio includes Vinovium House, in the hon. Lady’s constituency. To put that into context, the DWP currently occupies about 1.5 million square metres of office space, and we must acknowledge that at least 20% of that is under-occupied. The falling claimant count and the increased use of our online services in recent years means that 20% of the money that the Department is spending on rent is going towards space that we are not using. By paying only for the space that we need and the services required to operate from it, we anticipate saving £180 million per annum over the next 10 years.

In response to the changing demands facing the Department, we have redesigned our estate in a way that delivers better value for the taxpayer. The expiry of the property contract has presented both a unique opportunity and an essential requirement to review our estate. Let me be clear: this is not about reducing services; it is about taking the opportunity to stop spending taxpayers’ money on empty space so that we can spend more on supporting those in most need.

We have carefully considered the challenges that we anticipate in the Department, but the jobs landscape and the way people work have changed significantly in the past 20 years. The Department’s services always have adapted and always will adapt to social trends. Nearly 90% of universal credit claims are made online, and more of our services are moving online. We want to continue making the most of the opportunities that new technologies present to help best meet our claimants’ needs. It is right that we reflect not only the impact of such a digital revolution on meeting our claimants’ needs, but the realities of a more flexible labour market and the significant falls in unemployment since 2010. The employment rate is at 74.6%—a new record high—and unemployment is down 913,000 since 2010, as the economy has grown. Only by building a more modern and more dynamic DWP estate can we take full advantage of new opportunities and ensure that we have sufficient flexible capacity to allow us to expand in the event of an economic downturn.

In every case where change is proposed, including that of Vinovium House, we have sought to minimise disruption and to listen carefully to those who might be affected. As I have already said, Vinovium House is a back-of-house processing site for child maintenance claims. It is a comparatively small processing site, which has total capacity for only about 135 people, and is currently only 64% used. As a result of modernisation and efficiencies, the Department’s Child Maintenance Service now takes fewer people to deliver than it did previously. Across the whole of the DWP estate, there is significantly more capacity than is needed, and it is only right that we consider our options.

Delivering a modern and dynamic service to claimants requires modern and dynamic working environments, and we are striving to work towards that as part of our vision for the DWP in 2020. Our aim is to maintain and improve the services offered across the country, and we recognise how important DWP staff are to achieving that aim. In fact, DWP staff are our most valuable resource. It is as a result of their immense effort that the Department is able to provide such a high level of service to our customers. The hon. Lady is absolutely right to point out the high performance of our staff at this location and to comment on the office’s top-five rating. I recognise and celebrate how great our staff are, and I reassure her that our staff are our highest priority. My colleagues and I have been clear that the proposals put forward for the DWP’s redesigned estate do not mean a reduction in the number of frontline staff. In fact, we are recruiting, and we expect to have more work coaches in every nation and region in March 2018 than we have today.

For staff at Vinovium House, we are currently working through options with each individual, identifying relocation opportunities in the event of closure, but, most of all, listening carefully to them to understand fully the impact on staff. To that end, every member of staff has been offered a face-to-face meeting with their manager as part of the current consultation. This will allow us to hear the opinions of any of the staff members who would be impacted by the proposed changes. We are listening to the views that the staff are expressing. The hon. Lady was good enough to write to the Department in advance of this debate, and she has highlighted in her letter and this evening the concerns that the staff have already raised. I want to reassure her that we are taking those concerns very seriously indeed.

In the event of site closure, the Department has already made a commitment to support anyone who chooses to relocate, including the payment of additional travel expenses for up to three years. However, the fact remains that the Department has significantly more capacity across its network than is needed to serve the needs of child maintenance group clients.

Vinovium House in Bishop Auckland accommodates a team of Child Support Agency staff working on the 2003 scheme cases. These staff ensure that compliance is maintained on ongoing cases. We recognise the vital importance of compliance and of as many children as possible benefiting from the maintenance they are owed by their non-resident parent. Although we do not envisage this, should the closure of Vinovium House result in a shortfall of staff, we are committed to deploying appropriate resources to make sure we continue to keep the money flowing for the children.

[Helen Goodman]

Before the hon. Lady moves on to another aspect of this problem, may I say that when someone phones up non-resident parents to get them to pay the money that the parent with care is entitled to receive, they have to have a bit of a negotiation. It is not like applying for child benefit—I agree that people can apply for child benefit online—because, as she must know, such discussions are particular, personalised and specific. All this about being able to do it online is irrelevant to the work done by these people in this office.

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I have sat with Child Maintenance Service officers, listening to the calls that they make to non-resident parents. My first visit as a Minister in the Department for Work and Pension was to the north-east. I went to Cobalt House and saw the Child Maintenance Service in action. I have also been to the compliance unit in Hastings. She is right that those discussions are not easy—they are negotiations. That is something the staff made very clear to me. I want her to understand that one of my highest priorities is ensuring that we keep the money flowing to the children who are owed it by their non-resident parents.

I emphasise the need to cleanse the cases on the old CSA system that we are transferring to the new CMS caseload. While compliance work is immediate and happens, the arrears cleanse process can be undertaken as resources are available. We will, therefore, be able to flex our rate of cleanse in line with the amount of resources needed, to ensure that compliance work is not affected.

The overriding story to be told about the child maintenance group is one of immense improvement. All ongoing maintenance liabilities, like those managed by Vinovium House, will be managed by the Child Maintenance Service once all case closure is complete. We are seeing non-resident parents contributing to maintenance liability in seven out of eight cases. That has resulted in nearly 90% of the money due being paid towards the liability. Arrears growth is slowing and is down to 13% of total liability from 17% in 2015. Those figures reflect the Department’s commitment to improving the performance of the Child Maintenance Service.

We have made a number of changes in line with the recommendations of the Henshaw report. We have simplified the administration of the service; we have made our calculations faster and simpler through the use of HMRC income information; and we have introduced new applications in a staged pathfinder approach to ensure smooth delivery of the new scheme. All of those measures have put collaboration between parents and increased parental responsibility at the heart of the Child Maintenance Service. I am proud to say that, according to the latest figures, approximately 250,000 children are benefiting from maintenance, in part due to the excellent work of the DWP’s child maintenance service.

The proposed changes—I emphasise to the hon. Lady that they are proposed changes—are the result of careful analysis and planning. I appreciate the hon. Lady’s concerns about the proposals and thank her again for this debate, but the rationale for them is very clear: Vinovium House is currently only 64% utilised, and across the whole DWP estate 20% of the occupied space is underutilised. We are striving towards a more modern, dynamic DWP estate. That will ensure that we continue to have sufficient flexible capacity and to deliver the best services we can to our customers. To that end, we are considering whether the work currently undertaken at Vinovium House could be redistributed across the existing DWP network. In the event that that course of action is required, we would expect it to have no impact on the services we continue to provide to child maintenance group users. It is important to stress again that the closure of Vinovium House is still only a proposal at this stage, and we are continuing the consultation process with our staff to assess how each of them might be affected.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

As the hon. Gentleman mentioned, the consultation on the jobcentres in Glasgow has closed. We are working through a number of responses and will do so within the timeframe. I anticipate making announcements in April.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I have met the 83 people who work at Vinovium House in my constituency—another office that is scheduled for closure. Will the Minister explain what the impact of the closure of that child maintenance back office will be and how it can possibly be efficient to close an office in one of the most low-rent towns in the entire nation?

[Damian Hinds]

The entire estates review has come about because a 20-year private finance initiative contract comes to an end at the end of March 2018. That has presented the opportunity—indeed, the requirement—to review almost the entire DWP estate. We are trying to consolidate it into less space to save money for the taxpayer and to do things more efficiently. We do not want the people who work in those places, particularly in back-of-house locations, to be made redundant. We are trying extremely hard to find other opportunities for them elsewhere in DWP or in the public sector.

Child Poverty

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2016 Westminster Hall

[Dan Jarvis]

I absolutely agree. Just as I am seeking to build a cross-party consensus in the campaign against child poverty, I am seeking to build a consensus in every corner of our country. Again, I will say a little more about that later.

By seeking to understand the experiences of those who live in poverty every day, we can help to build a fairer country—one that delivers the vision set out by the Prime Minister as she took office. Let us be clear: that is now urgent. The Institute for Fiscal Studies projects the biggest increase in relative child poverty in a generation: the number of children growing up in poverty is expected to grow by 50% by 2020.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I am really pleased that my hon. Friend has secured this debate, because it is very easy at Christmas-time for there to be an orgy of consumption and we need to think about the families who are not going to share in that. My hon. Friend is absolutely right about what is coming down the tracks. Does he share my concern that, having dissed the idea of relative poverty, the Government have been trumpeting the fact that relative poverty did not fall in the last five years? More important, does he share my concern that changes made in the Budget by the previous Chancellor after the general election mean that every family in the bottom third of the income distribution is going to be worse off?

[Dan Jarvis]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. I know that she has a long-standing interest in the subject of child poverty, which I will refer to a bit later in my speech. She raises the issue of poverty being relative, which reminds me of a quote:

“Even if we are not destitute, we still experience poverty if we cannot afford things that society regards as essential. The fact that we do not suffer the conditions of a hundred years ago is irrelevant… So poverty is relative—and those who pretend otherwise are wrong.”

That quote was from David Cameron.

I was reflecting on the projection from the Institute for Fiscal Studies of the biggest increase in relative child poverty in a generation, with the number of children growing up in poverty expected to grow by 50% by 2020. The Government have a choice to make and the power to stop that increase happening. Their decisions will shape what kind of country we live in.

Yet what have we recently learned of the Government’s approach from their response to my parliamentary questions? We have learned that the child poverty unit has been closed. Eliminating child poverty is no longer the goal of policy. The Government admit that no money is being directly invested by the Department for Work and Pensions to develop evidence on what early interventions best support children and that a maximum of only seven civil servants support the Government’s Social Mobility Commission. That is not a record that matches the Prime Minister’s rhetoric.