Autumn Statement Distributional Analysis, Universal Credit and ESA

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I am pleased to take part in this debate, and to follow the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge). He made the very fair point that benefits that go to pensioners in the higher tax brackets could be an area that is targeted for reductions. If we made those reductions, we would not be putting people with long-term chronic health conditions and disabilities into the position that the Government are choosing to put them in by making these ESA cuts.

I want to take part in this debate because in my constituency 6,138 people are either on universal credit—or on jobseeker’s allowance and will be moved on to universal credit—or on ESA. That is a lot of people and the cuts will have a significant impact on some of them. When we look at the wider economic impact, we must also take account of the fact that more than £1 million will be taken out of the local economy—another £1 million that will not be spent in the local high street and that does not help the local economy. The measure does not make sense for individuals—it is unkind and cruel—and does not make sense for the local economy either.

I want in particular to focus on what the Chancellor publishes regarding the distributional implications of his measures. I note that the Government’s amendment refers to the Chancellor’s remarks to the Treasury Committee last month. He simply said:

“I will look carefully at the best format for doing so, including the issues you have raised around the baseline.”

That is pretty gnomic. As well as being able to stop the ESA cuts, I hope that we may also persuade the Chancellor to revert to the practice that we saw between 2010 and 2015 of providing proper distributional analysis, showing how each decile will be affected in the first year and for the rest of the Parliament by changes in the tax and benefits system. That is the detail we want. That is the detail we used to have.

It is incredible that the Government have not published the detail. I do not believe that they do not know what the distributional impacts are. It is possible that they do not care, but they are foolish if they think that they can hide the impacts. Every year, three days after the Budget, the IFS does the analysis anyway, so the impacts are revealed to the nation in the newspapers. It would be much better for the Chancellor to do what was done between 2010 and 2015 and be up front about the impacts and put them in the back of the Red Book.

The Treasury Committee has been on this case for a long time and initially asked the previous Chancellor to make the changes. However, we have returned to pressing the new Chancellor. The Committee’s Chairman, the right hon. Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie), first pointed out that the quintile analysis

“cannot be used to determine the effect of government policies on household incomes.”

Secondly, he said that it is

“not possible to determine the impact of the policies of the present Government on the distribution of tax and spending.”

Thirdly, he stated that the “assumptions underpinning the analysis” keep changing, meaning that we cannot compare one Budget with another. Fourthly, he said that the attempt to apportion

“public spending on items such as health, police, justice, defence”

by quintile is extremely flaky. We do not really know how much of these other public services are consumed by people in the different quintiles. If the Government want to do the quintile analysis, that is fine and they can publish it, but they should also do the decile analysis.

I want to remind the House about the impact of the last Budget. The truth is that it provided losses in annual net income for all families except two-earner couples without children. The bottom half of the income distribution gained £20. The top half, however, gained £170. Looking in detail at the deciles, the second poorest decile lose £1,500 between 2015 and 2019, but those next to the top gain £170. Looking at working-age families with children, the second poorest decile is set to lose £2,800, but those next to the top will gain £500. The number of children in absolute poverty between 2009-10 and 2013-14 rose by half a million. The proportion of children in absolute low income rose in that period from 11% to 17%. Ministers must not be seduced by their own rhetoric. We need to come back to a fact-based approach to policy making.

The new Chancellor has an opportunity to break free from the tight framework set by his predecessor. He can fulfil the promise made by the Prime Minister to help those who are just managing. If he publishes the information and makes some sensible change, we will all know that he has done that.

Improving Lives: Work, Health and Disability Green Paper

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

Yes, that is exactly at the heart of what we are trying to do, because there have been too many gaps in the system. Health Ministers and I agree that we must get the systems working together much better so that individuals find the journey much more seamless than they ever have.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Could the Secretary of State consider more carefully the role of GPs? With the work capability assessment, untrained people are sometimes overriding the advice of GPs. We do not want to see that with ESA regarding fit notes.

[Damian Green]

The hon. Lady makes a reasonable point. GPs will play a significant role in the system, and we want the role they play to be as constructive as possible. We have looked at ways of changing the system so that GPs can be involved earlier. The reason for the consultation on the changes to the fit note is precisely to find a way of making the fit note help the person concerned back into work without adding to the burden on GPs. We want everyone involved in the system to feel they are playing a part in helping someone to get back into work.

Welfare

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

One of the big challenges we have as a Government is working with employers to reassure them and support them in making good decisions about recruiting and hiring disabled people. We have a really important initiative in my Department called Access to Work. We need to publicise it a lot more and get more employers looking at it and accessing it.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

We were all pleased to hear the Secretary of State say, “We have no further plans to make welfare savings beyond the very substantial savings legislated for”. Can he therefore guarantee that there will be no reductions in rates or eligibility criteria for any social security benefits in this Parliament?

[Stephen Crabb]

The statement was very clear. The kind of changes that the hon. Lady describes would be cuts to people’s benefits, so we as a Government are not looking at that at this moment in time.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

The right hon. Gentleman makes my point for me and, importantly, highlights the significance of the Government’s work on life chances. That will cover the whole range of ages, because it is of fundamental importance that the Government provide the right measures to support people throughout their lives.

I turn to the employment and support allowance work-related activity component, and the universal credit limited capability for work element measures. I remind the House why the changes are being made. As we stated when we last debated the measures, the change is urgently needed to ensure that the right incentives—and, importantly, support—are available to help more people with disabilities and health conditions to move closer to, and into, employment. We have experienced record employment levels and strong jobs growth over the past few years, but the benefits have bypassed the majority of those who are stuck on ESA. Only one in 100 ESA claimants in the WRAG moves off benefits each month, compared with one in five jobseeker’s allowance claimants. That cannot be right, and the Government believe that people with health conditions and disabilities deserve better.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

My understanding from our debate on the matter last week is that the Government intend to put an extra £100 million into supporting that group. However, will the Minister confirm that the savings she plans to make from the measure are much greater—some £600 million?

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Lady will know from the Bill and the impact assessments the fiscal savings that will result from the measure. Fundamentally, we are making the change so that we can provide long-term support. For that reason, I think that all hon. Members will look forward to it.

We are committed to tackling the problem that too few people are moving off benefits and being supported into employment. There are economic, social and moral arguments for ensuring that those who are able to work can work, and that they are supported into work. Work is the most effective way to improve the wellbeing of individuals, their families and their communities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)]

When I spoke on this matter in this House a week ago, I referred to the issue of the publication of data and the Lords amendments then before us. I recall saying, in answer to an intervention from an Opposition Member, that I felt sure the Minister for Employment, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) would be giving an assurance that the Government would be guaranteeing that the sort of data that the Labour party was asking for would be guaranteed and would be published annually. Lo and behold, that is what has happened. She has been absolutely correct in making that concession to the Lords, and the resulting Lords amendments 1B, 1C and 1D are to be welcomed. I hope we can all support them this evening.

On the other Lords amendments, 8B, 8C, 9B and 9C, my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) has articulated the parliamentary process. I will not go through any more of those arguments, but it is clearly the fact that this House—the democratically elected House—has quite properly voted on these matters on many occasions. I served on the Bill Committee, along with the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), for many occasions last autumn, and all these issues have been discussed in full and passed by this House.

Rather than the process, what is important to remember is this: everybody, on both sides of this House, wants to do the right thing. This Government have at the heart of their policy the fact that we will ensure that those with long-term illnesses or physical or mental disabilities will get all the help that they need to move closer to work. Of course that is the right approach, and it is the essence of the Government’s policy.

While on the issue, I should say that I am holding a Disability Confident event this Friday in my constituency, with the Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People, my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), and that shows that with a rounded package of measures, this Government are absolutely committed to helping those who need the most support to get closer to work. It is time to get these measures on the statute book.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The proposal to cut the incomes of people on ESA WRAG by £1,500 is one of the most mean-spirited yet from this Government. The fact that the cut applies only to new claimants, in a little over a year’s time, demonstrates the unease Ministers have about it and their hope—a vain one—that because it applies only to new claimants, somehow people will not notice. The fact is that Ministers are looking for large savings at the expense of the poorest and most vulnerable. That was not made clear in the general election campaign; then, the Prime Minister said that disabled people would be protected.

The Minister said that she was going to spend another £100 million on supporting these people. If her scheme was going to work, she would not need to cut this £30 from such people’s weekly income, because she would get the savings as they all moved into work. This is doomed to fail and the Minister knows it. If she was convinced that it was going to work, she would do the impact assessment, because she would be confident of the upshot. She is not doing so, and she is ignoring the very real impact that this will have on the health of the most vulnerable of our fellow citizens.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams]

As a former public health academic, I will answer in the following way. We know the value of having indicators that we can compare over a long period; that is internationally recognised. They provide an opportunity for this Government and future Governments—and past Governments as well—to be monitored and to be held to account for their policies and the way in which they affect child poverty.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important to remind those on the Government Benches that the Child Poverty Act 2010 had four measures: a relative poverty measure; an absolute poverty measure; a persistent poverty measure; and a material deprivation poverty measure? We were not relying on one simple measure.

[Debbie Abrahams]

My hon. Friend is spot-on, and again this is what the Lords amendment is asking for: that the exact same measures be included.

I want to sum up on this point by referring to one of the witnesses, who is a clinical expert in child health. He said the Government are trying to refocus child poverty from “income-based indicators” to factors related to

“family breakdown, debt and addiction”,

conflating

“the consequences of child poverty, with the cause—a lack of material resources.”

That sums it up so well.

Let us turn now to the UK’s infant mortality rate, a proxy for the health of the nation. It is currently in the highest quarter of all EU15 countries. I was shocked when I heard that, and for under-fives we have the worst mortality rate in all of northern Europe. We should be ashamed of that. We know that infant mortality is strongly linked to poverty and material deprivation. We know from national statistics that there is a fivefold difference in the infant mortality rates between the lowest and highest socioeconomic groups. There is not a law of nature that says that children from poor families have to die at five times the rate of children from rich families.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Goodman]

I begin by addressing amendment 1. The Labour Government had four poverty measures when we took through the Child Poverty Act 2010—absolute, relative and persistent poverty and material deprivation. We measured all of them. Between 1997 and 2010 we cut the number of children living in relative poverty by 1 million, and the number of children living in absolute poverty by 2 million. There is nothing arbitrary about this. It is important to have those measures because they are used across the OECD. That enables us to compare our performance with that of the other countries that UNICEF studies.

Ministers want to abandon those targets because they intend to freeze benefits and cut child tax credits if there are more than three, four or five children in a family. Those measures will increase the number of children living in poverty. Because they do not want that to be evident to the whole world, they do not want to use the targets. We should not let them off the hook.

We all think life chances matter. We are all interested in the correlations between the kind of childhood people have and what happens to them later in life. No one is saying that we do not want to measure those things, but I remind the House that not being able to go on a school trip, never having a holiday, not having a birthday party—these things matter in themselves because children are not human becomings, but human beings. Childhood is a part of life. The quality of life in the early years matters just as much as it matters what our lives are like or what the quality of our parents’ life is like.

On amendments 8 and 9, I want to bring into the House the voice of the people affected. Those in the ESA support group are not people who are not working out of perversity or because they have not done the arithmetic and do not know what the incentives are. They are not in work because the jobs do not exist, or because of the barriers to work. They may have problems with transport, they may be stressed, they may be exhausted or they may be struggling against extremely difficult odds. In my constituency there are 860 people in the ESA work-related activity group. I get letters from them and have meetings with them every single week.

This week I heard from a woman who wrote:

“My husband…has been in receipt of ESA-Support Group benefit…for some considerable time due to long standing health problems of both a physical and psychological nature. He has recently had to resubmit the…questionnaire and we have just had notification that he has been placed in the Support Group but this will only be until November…His last award was for three years.

Considering the…letter from the GP”—

and the psychologist—

“we can’t believe the DWP think it is in any way appropriate to put my husband through this process twice within the same year…He will now spend…months worrying and becoming increasingly anxious about having to face the process again”.

She adds that he is “extremely vulnerable”. Treating this group of people in that way is not helpful. Making them poorer, not helping them to heat their homes or to eat properly, and making them anxious about whether they can pay their rent is not helpful.

The week before I received that letter, I had a letter from another constituent, who said:

“I’m petrified. Atos did my ESA medical...yet they still lied. I’d told them my disabilities and…they didn’t mention any of them…I was called by a woman from the DWP who told me my ESA was cancelled. She seemed happy (really happy) to gloat about this…I had to live on my 9 year old daughter’s £20 child benefit and child tax credit for 4 weeks. It takes a split second to stop benefits but 4 weeks to reinstate.”

She has now been told she must provide her own medical records, which will cost £500 because doctors are charging to provide them. She continues:

“I can’t afford this on £102 a week…I’ve not slept in ages”.

She adds that she has “cried a lot” because she knows what will happen to her.

That is the situation people are already in, and we absolutely cannot see them pushed down even further. I appeal to the Minister’s better nature. I appeal to her to think again about amendments 8 and 9.

[Kevin Foster]

It has been an interesting debate so far. The Opposition contribution that was of most interest to me was probably that of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), and it is a pity that others did not take a lead from him.

Let me start with the measures of child poverty. Using measures of relative income as the main driver can have some bizarre impacts. For example, we focus on those just under the line, not those who are most in need or most desperate, and we try to get them over the line to make the numbers work. As I touched on in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones), that approach can inspire the view that making the whole of society poorer will end relative poverty, even though no one is better off. As we heard, the bizarre outcome is that a recession is, in theory, the best news when it comes to reducing child poverty, whereas, in a boom, things would be the other way round.

That is why it is right to focus on creating real life chances. I speak as someone whose mother grew up on a council estate and whose father worked for 37 years in Devonport dockyard—he had to work hard with his hands to get what he could for his family. That is important: this is about social mobility and achievements such as those.

A Scottish National party Member noted in an intervention that it makes sense to measure these things not just at 16, but all the way through education. There is perhaps more work to be done, therefore, and I look forward to what the taskforce says, but it is important to look at what our education system turns out at the end of the day. One example that has been given is that, a few years back, more children came out of Eton with three As at A-level, allowing them to get to top universities, than came out of the entire cohort of children on free school meals in England. That really is a thought-provoking point. We may disagree about how best to tackle it, but it is certainly no great compliment to our system.

Employers with jobs want people with skills. They want to employ people and to put them into high-paid job. However, they find that people just do not have the skills or the ability to take those jobs up. That is where educational outcomes have an impact on life outcomes and on whether people stay in poverty. If people do not have the skills to move into employment, that opportunity is not there. That is why looking at the life chances side is so important in tackling poverty and preventing people from being locked into a cycle, with parents being in a low-paid job, children going into a low-paid job and grand-children going into a low-paid job.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham). Unfortunately, the £640 million that is being saved on ESA is not going to go to work-related activities; it is going to go to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

In the last Parliament, I had the privilege, along with my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), who made a characteristically excellent speech, to take the Child Poverty Act 2010 through, and we had all-party support at that time. It is therefore very disappointing that this Government are abandoning that Act and even the aspiration to end child poverty. Furthermore, it is ridiculous of them to attempt to airbrush the whole concept from the statute book.

I do not believe this Government have a mandate for the changes they are making in this Bill. Throughout the election campaign the Tories refused to say how they were going to save £12 billion from the welfare bill, because they knew that the measures would be unpopular and it would hit them in the ballot box. Indeed, the Prime Minister went on national television to say that he would not be cutting tax credits. In any case, the truth of the matter is that 9 million people did not vote Tory on 7 May. The most obnoxious part of the Bill is the proposal to cut tax credit support for families with more than two children. When we were in government, Labour had a principle that Every Child Matters, and I believe that was the right principle.

[Heidi Allen]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Goodman]

I will. [Interruption.]

[Heidi Allen]

We are friends, I believe. I think we are all friends in here—I hope we are.

[Heidi Allen]

Thank you. I do not have children, so I often tread carefully in these sorts of debates because I do not want people to point the finger and say, “Well, you don’t understand.” But I am certain of one thing: a choice between one, two or three children is a choice. If you cannot afford it, why should the taxpayer subsidise you? Can she answer that? [Interruption.]

[Helen Goodman]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) described, people’s circumstances can change. People do not have a complete and perfect forecast of how their life is going to pan out, which is why we need a safety net. The problem is that a child living in a family with more than two children is 50% more likely to be living in poverty than the average. Some 35% of the children in this country who live in poverty live in those families, so these measures are precisely targeted at those children. The measures will increase the number of children affected and deepen the poverty they face.

[Richard Graham]

Does the hon. Lady recognise The Children’s Society’s comments? It said it supports plans to add additional reporting requirements on parental employment and educational attainment as these are important in contributing to children’s welfare. I know she would say that these were additional, not a substitute, but does she recognise that they are important measures to study?

[Helen Goodman]

I used to work for The Children’s Society and it does some excellent work. What I am concerned about tonight is that rather like a child who has broken a toy and hides it under the bed, the Chancellor tried to hide the impact of this Budget by not presenting the distribution tables in the normal and proper way after the Budget. Fortunately, the IFS told us the truth, which is that people at the top are losing 0.2% of their income and people at the bottom are losing 7% of theirs. This is a phenomenally regressive Bill and a very regressive Budget. It will take £10 million out of the local economy every single year in my constituency. As hon. Members have said, one of the worst things about the tax credit cuts is that they affect in-work families, who are struggling in low-paid jobs to do their very best for their children. They are being given what my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) has called a “work penalty”. The Bill worsens work incentives. A top-rate taxpayer who earns an extra pound can take home 55p whereas a lone parent on tax credits can take home only 25p.

The Chancellor believes that his rabbit—a rise in the national minimum wage—solves the problem. Of course we all welcome that increase, but it does not solve the problem. It does not compensate by the right amount, it does not compensate enough people and it does not compensate at the right time. Overall, 13 million people are losing from these measures. Some 3 million are losing £1,000 and 2.7 million people will gain from the national minimum wage. The mismatch is shown by chart B3 on page 208 of the report by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility. It says something that surprised me and is very pertinent:

“around half the cash gains”—

from the increase in the minimum wage—

“may accrue to the top half of the household income distribution”.

It shows that people at the bottom gain less than £600 and those at the top gain more than £1,000. Furthermore, in evidence to the Treasury Committee last week, it told us that only 14% of people in the bottom decile receive the national minimum wage.

I have concentrated on the issue of children and tax credits, but I have also had many messages from carers, sick and disabled people, and lone parents who are worried that the 30-hour condition is coming in before the extra childcare provision is in place. There are so many serious issues here, and it is a shame that we do not have time to address them.

Recently, Professor Amartya Sen said:

“Democracy should be about preventing mistakes through participatory deliberations, rather than about making heads roll after mistakes have been made.”

He is right. I have been in this House for 10 years, and I have never voted against my party’s Whip. I think that my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham made a good case for the Front-Bench amendment. I shall vote for the amendment, but there are so many issues in this Bill that are deeply worrying that I cannot avoid going into the No Lobby against it tonight.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. He always tells the House that his politics is based on his faith. Will he explain why cutting tax credits for large families is a fair thing to do when that will be concentrated—I know he does not want to look at statistics—on families where children are living in poverty: Roman Catholic families and Catholics from other minorities? Does he understand that every child matters?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I do understand that, and I am coming on to speak about tax credits. For some time I have believed that the way tax credits operated distorted the system, so that there were far too many families not in work, living in bigger and bigger houses and getting larger while being subsidised by the state, while many others—the vast majority of families in Britain—made decisions about how many children they could have and the houses they could live in. Getting that balance back is about getting fairness back into the system. It is not fair to have somebody living in a house that they cannot afford to pay for if they go back to work, as it means that they do not enter the work zone and their children grow up with no sense of work as a way out of poverty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I do. As my hon. Friend makes clear, if people can afford to work only 16 hours, businesses will not invest in them and their training because it will not be worth their while. That means their chances of progressing are nil. Many rotated and crashed out of work directly, because they had no sense that they could go on any further. She is absolutely right.

We believe that two-fifths of those who received tax credits ended up paying for the tax credits they received. It was a bizarre system.

This Government are different. We are building on the firm foundations of a welfare system by balancing the books and fixing the economy, while continuing to provide a strong safety net to support the most vulnerable. Our record in the previous Parliament spoke for itself, so I am going to say it again. Despite all the doomsday predictions from the Opposition—

[Helen Goodman]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

No. I gave way to the hon. Lady. She did not succeed then; she is not going to get another chance. I am terribly sorry.

[Helen Goodman]

rose—

[Mr Duncan Smith]

No, no. Honestly, I am not that kind.

Despite the doomsday predictions that the hon. Lady and many of her colleagues made, this is the actual result: 2 million more people in work; 2 million more apprentices; the proportion of workless households at an all-time low; and, perhaps most importantly, the proportion of workless households in the social rented sector at a record all-time low. That is a real record of success on which we will build. That is what we are going to do with the Budget.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I must say that that would have to be pretty quick work. If they have done that much work in a matter of hours, I want to employ them in my Department. No, I do not agree with that, and here is why. I fully support food banks. What people do to help with food banks is a very good idea. However, the figures on usage put out by food banks have all been proven to be incorrect. In Germany, 1.5 million people a week use food banks and its benefit system is meant to be more generous than ours. In Canada, more than 800,000 a month use food banks. This country has a very low number compared with other countries. Those figures speak for themselves.

As we build on this, we must meet our commitments to protect the elderly and the most vulnerable, protecting those benefits that provide for additional costs arising from disability or caring, and protecting pensioner benefits. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor and I make no apology for that, with good reason. When we took office, pensioners were some of the most vulnerable people suffering from a very, very low income. We have begun to put that right, and we intend to be proud of it.

It is right that we provide extra support for those who face the biggest challenges in changing their income levels. Spending on the main disability benefits—disability living allowance, personal independence payment and attendance allowance—will be higher in every single year to 2020 compared with 2010. Our commitment to protecting the most vulnerable is why we have protections in place on policies such as the benefit cap, so that people are exempt if someone in a household is claiming DLA, PIP or working tax credits. Wherever possible, we are introducing measures on a flow basis to give people the time and knowledge to prepare for the changes.

We are also ensuring that people on benefits face the same choices as those in work and not on benefits. Our measures will mean people making decisions and choices about their lives, which is why we are introducing the two-children element on a flow basis, and why we are lowering the benefits cap to £23,000 in London and £20,000 elsewhere, emphasising that it is not fair for someone on benefits to receive more than many people in work. I think that that principle is well accepted and popular around the country. In London, about four in 10 households earn less than £23,000, and outside London the same proportion earn less than £20,000.

[Helen Goodman]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way; he is being very generous today.

Will the Secretary of State not admit that although he is protecting disability benefits, he is not protecting disabled people, because disabled people also get tax credits and housing benefit?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I just do not agree with that, I am afraid. We have set out to protect disability living allowance and PIPs so that those in the greatest need are protected and their benefits continue to rise. As I said, we will help those in work and capable of work through the living wage and childcare support. We will get people back to work and doing more hours. I do not agree, therefore, with what the hon. Lady says; we have gone out of our way to protect those in the greatest need.

Welfare Reform (People with Disabilities)

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Westminster Hall

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) on securing the debate and on making an excellent and well-informed speech. I also thank my hon. Friends the Members for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) and for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), who spoke powerfully from her personal experience and demonstrated the sensitivity and difficulty of this issue for many people.

Government Members have been telling us that the key thing is to get people with disabilities back to work, but the Government’s schemes have unfortunately not succeeded. The Work programme has failed, with fewer than one in 10 disabled people getting into work. Work Choice has not worked well. Access to Work has been cut. The number of disability employment advisers has been cut. Those things are not going as Members across the House would like. We must acknowledge the fact that, in any society at any time, some people will always be dependent on such benefits.

I was disappointed that the Minister thought that he could somehow set the debate up well by stating previously that PIP claimants are only waiting four weeks. I have gone through my constituency case load and I can tell him that people are waiting much longer not only for their PIP assessments, but for the money. For example, Mr C attended a medical assessment for PIP in April, but he has not received any correspondence about whether it was successful. He has been awarded ESA, which has been backdated, but it takes 13 weeks for him to get the money. I do not know what he is supposed to live on in the meantime. Perhaps the Minister will tell us.

The most important issue that I want the Minister to address is where the £12 billion in cuts are going to come from. Will he now rule out cuts to PIP, cuts to attendance allowance, cuts to carer’s allowance, cuts to industrial injuries disablement benefit and cuts to ESA? Will he further rule out taxation of PIP? As the Royal National Institute of Blind People has said, it is absurd to tax a benefit designed to cover the costs of disability. I hope the Minister will rule those things out.

Child Poverty

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I thank my hon. Friend, who makes a critical point. If we set up a target process that deals with only one aspect of a symptom, we will not get to the root causes. We have set out to get to those families who are the furthest away from employment, and move them into independence through employment. The figures I have given on the number of people in social housing now back in work and those on the lowest incomes now back in work are dramatic. They are better than any other records previously established.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has been in his post for five years. In that time, the number of households living in absolute poverty has gone up by 2 million and the number of children doing so has gone up by half a million. Is not ditching the relative poverty measure and moving to focus on absolute poverty a complete own goal?

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I commend my hon. Friend’s local food bank, and him, on the work done in his constituency. If he has specific examples that he would like to draw to my attention, I will happily discuss them with him.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

May I welcome the Minister to her new role? Before the election, we had a most unsatisfactory debate on benefits sanctions with her predecessor. I have to say, Mr Speaker, that in a disappointing election for Labour, the result in Wirral West was one bright spot.



One person in four is now being sanctioned, and sanctions are cited as one of the top reasons for people visiting food banks. Will the Minister take steps to make sure that DWP staff apply the good reasons code correctly and end these vicious and arbitrary sanctions?

[Priti Patel]

I thank the hon. Lady for her welcome, although I must say I thought her comments about my predecessor were ungracious.

Regarding sanctions, I assure the House that for those in genuine need, hardship payments are on offer, as is support for those who have been sanctioned. Support is there for those who can demonstrate that they require financial assistance to buy essential items. It is absolutely right that in our jobcentres and in the interactions with claimants, we give them the right sort of support, guidance and advice, and I assure the hon. Lady that that does take place.