Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jo Churchill]

No, it is the fact that over 1 million more people are in work and youth employment is up by around 40%. Ensuring that people have the dignity of work and that, when they are not in work, there is a strong welfare system around them, is what this country needs.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

6. What recent assessment his Department has made of the potential relationship between increases in the cost of living and trends in the use of food banks.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

16. What recent assessment his Department has made of the potential relationship between increases in the cost of living and trends in the use of food banks.

[The Minister for Employment (Jo Churchill)]

The Government take food security very seriously and are committed to understanding and addressing food poverty. The reasons that people use food banks are complex and varied. Food banks are independent charitable organisations and the Government have no role in their operation. As such, data on trends are not currently available.

[Helen Hayes]

The staff and volunteers at the Norwood and Brixton food bank in my constituency work tirelessly all year round to support local people who simply cannot make ends meet. They are responding to the highest level of need they have ever seen. Why does the Minister think that, despite this being one of the richest countries in the world, food bank reliance is continuing to rise so much on this Government’s watch? Can she tell the House what the Government are doing to end the need for food banks in the UK?

[Jo Churchill]

As I said, the reasons that people use food banks are complex and varied, as all the research indicates. We offer support through cost of living payments and the household support fund, running to hundreds of millions of pounds. The rise in the national living wage, the reduction in national insurance and the local housing allowance further help 1.6 million low-income households. We have a whole of suite of ways to help the very poorest in our society.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Churchill]

I refer my hon. Friend to the answers I gave to the Work and Pensions Committee. Statutory sick pay is considerably more complex than he makes out, but it is nice to see all this cross-party collaboration.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

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

The Department has been busy supporting the most vulnerable, with the third instalment of the £900 cost of living payments starting to reach the bank accounts of 8 million low-income households tomorrow. We are also on the verge of publishing our disability action plan. We have seen economic inactivity decrease by 330,000 since its peak during the pandemic.

I have made it a priority for my Department to engage across Parliament. As Secretary of State, I appeared before the Work and Pensions Committee in December. The pensions Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), appeared before the Committee on 10 January; the Minister for Employment, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), appeared before the Committee on 31 January; and I believe the Minister for Disabled People, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies), and Viscount Younger, our Lords Minister, will appear before it next month. There will be a statement on the disability action plan this afternoon.

[Helen Hayes]

Lambeth Council and Southwark Council have worked hard over the past few years to deliver targeted cost of living support through the household support fund. Many local people continue to face serious hardship as a consequence of this Government’s political decisions, but local authorities do not know what, if any, funding they will receive after 31 March. When does the Secretary of State expect to confirm the future of the household support fund, so that local authorities can plan ahead?

[Mel Stride]

I am pleased that the hon. Lady recognises the importance and value of our various interventions. Ten million payments have been made through the HSF since its inception, and £1 billion has been put into the fund in the last year. She will know that her question is a matter for the Chancellor, and the matter will quite possibly—I really do not know—be dealt with at a future fiscal event. There is no news on that at this stage.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Before I call question 9, I understand that it has been grouped with question 13 but not questions 20 and 22, which are identical. I find that rather strange. Of course, it is up to Ministers to propose groupings, but I make it clear that if the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves) and the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) wish to catch my eye, they will be called for their supplementaries.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

9. What assessment she has made of the reasons for the finding in the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s “UK Poverty 2022” report that child poverty in families with more than two children increased from 33% to 47% between 2012-13 and 2019-20.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (David Rutley)]

With your permission, Mr Speaker, I will answer Questions 9 and 13—and, with your guidance, probably a whole load more—together.

We have long championed the principle that work is the best route out of poverty, based on clear evidence of the importance of parental employment, particularly where it is full time, in substantially reducing the risk of poverty. In 2020-21, there were more children living in a home where at least one person was working, with nearly 580,000 fewer children living in workless households than in 2010.

[Helen Hayes]

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation highlights that child poverty in families with more than two children has risen, on this Government’s watch, to levels not seen since before 1997. Those families are disproportionately affected by increases in the cost of living and are treated punitively by the benefits system. Does the Minister really believe that it is acceptable for children to suffer more just because of the number of siblings they have? If not, what is he going to do to ensure that all families with children have the support they need at this very difficult time?

[David Rutley]

At a time of record vacancies, the key thing we need to do is to focus on getting parents into work and helping them to progress in work. That is our underlying priority. For those with vulnerabilities, we will make sure that extra support is available through the household support fund. I understand that Lambeth alone has £2.7 million to support people in the borough.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

2. Whether she has made an assessment of the effect of ending the £20 universal credit uplift on trends in the level of homelessness.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

8. What assessment she has made of the impact of removing the £20 uplift to the standard allowance of universal credit on household budgets.

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

14. What assessment she has made of the impact of removing the £20 uplift to the standard allowance of universal credit on household budgets.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Coffey]

We have provided £140 million of discretionary housing payments to councils, specifically to target that element. We boosted the local housing allowance in the covid Budget of 2020, and we have kept it at that rate. As the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley), has just said, there has been a significant investment of about £2.5 billion in both increasing the work allowance and reducing the taper rate. My work coaches across the country are helping people to get into work day in, day out.

[Helen Hayes]

Many of my constituents have caring responsibilities and can only work part time, often at low wages. Does the Secretary of State recognise that families in this situation will generally lose more from the £20 a week cut to the standard allowance than they could ever hope to gain from the reduced taper? What does she have to say to those families?

[Dr Coffey]

I respect that people undertake care, and I am conscious that they often choose to do it in partnership with their local authority. We want to make sure that people take advantage of the increase in the national minimum wage, which will be coming in from April 2022, and of the changes that make it worthwhile for people to work extra hours and progress in work, which will be a big focus of what we do in 2022 and beyond.

Universal Credit and Working Tax Credits

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I rise to speak against the cut to universal credit, which is cruel, illogical and unnecessary. It is cruel because £20 a week makes all the difference to those on the lowest incomes, many of whom are already working all the hours they can but simply cannot make ends meet. Norwood and Brixton food bank, which serves many of my constituents every week with love and care, has been warning for many months that if local people on universal credit are subjected to this cut, the need for emergency food support will increase, placing even more pressure on its staff and volunteers. Our welfare state was established to provide a security safety net for people who cannot make ends meet, yet this Government are taking us back to Victorian Britain, where people forced into appalling hardship by the Government’s failures are reliant on the good will of our communities in ever-increasing numbers.

This cut will cause unspeakable hardship. Parents will go without food so that their children can eat. People will suffer in cold, damp homes because they will not be able to afford the heating. Debt will increase and physical and mental health will deteriorate. This cut is illogical, because at a time of fragile economic recovery, when high streets up and down the country are struggling and shops are closing, it makes no sense to be taking millions of pounds of expenditure out of every single constituency in the country. And this cut is unnecessary, because it is a political choice.

There are many ways in which the Government could lift people out of poverty. They could raise the minimum wage to the real living wage, make housing more affordable, make childcare more affordable and ban zero-hours contracts, but they have failed those on the lowest pay for more than a decade and now they are punishing the same low-paid workers. These are the same people who have been at the frontline of the coronavirus pandemic: social care workers, shop workers, childcare workers, delivery drivers, hospital porters, bus drivers and others. This is no way to treat those who have seen us through the greatest crisis since the second world war.

It does not take a degree in engineering to know that if the screws are too tight, the pressure will buckle and break even the strongest of materials. Make no mistake, this cut will break people who have already faced so much pressure from the cruel policies of this Tory Government bearing down on them. Government Members have a choice: they can live with this cruellest of cuts or they can join us in the Lobby and vote against it, because it is wrong and unacceptable.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

After the next speaker, I will reduce the time limit to two minutes, but that is because I want to get everybody in. I call Zarah Sultana.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

I thank my hon. Friend, who is a champion of real lived experience through his casework and his speeches in Parliament. I can reassure him that both the DWP health and disability Green Paper and the national strategy for disabled people will be shaped by those with real lived experiences. I know that, as a proactive Member of Parliament, he will be happy to host his own stakeholder engagement event with his local advocacy groups.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab) [V]]

Research from the TUC shows that statutory sick pay currently covers less than a fifth of annual earnings. Does the Secretary of State agree with the head of the Government’s test and trace programme, Dido Harding, that low levels of statutory sick pay are acting as a financial barrier to people being able to self-isolate, creating additional public health risks? What steps is she taking to ensure that statutory sick pay provides sufficient support to enable everyone to self-isolate when necessary?

[Justin Tomlinson]

As already set out, this is part of the menu of support that people could benefit from, including universal credit, new style ESA and support provided through local authorities or, if they qualify, £500 through the test and trace scheme. But on the wider point, through “Health is everyone’s business”, we have covered a range of measures to look at reforming SSP. We will publish those findings shortly, but they will look at things such as the rate, the structure and the lower earnings threshold, as well as actually dealing with the issue that people are either 100% fit or 100% sick without any phased return to work, which is something we are determined to change.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend asks an important question about our work with the business community and across the Government. The DWP has been an integral player in the development of the plan for jobs. Together with my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for BEIS and for Education, we have had several roundtables with the business community and others to ensure that people who are looking to enter employment can develop skills and have additional funding, going down the apprenticeship or traineeship route, as well as kickstart. I am also in regular discussions with other Cabinet colleagues on the creation of new opportunities wherever possible.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I spoke yesterday with the manager of Brixton and Norwood food bank, who told me it had delivered as many parcels in the five-month period from April to August as they would normally deliver in a year—an extraordinary effort from a dedicated team of staff and volunteers for which our whole community is deeply grateful. However, they are very worried about the planned withdrawal of the £20 uplift in universal credit at the end of March, which would result in thousands more families across the country being unable to make ends meet indefinitely. Will the Secretary of State act now and confirm that the uplift will continue, or will she expect food banks up and down the country to scale up their efforts even further after March to continue to backfill for the Government’s failure to stop food poverty?

[Will Quince]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. The Department has an ongoing positive relationship with a range of food bank providers. It has regularly engaged with them throughout the coronavirus pandemic and will continue to do so. We quickly introduced welfare changes worth an additional £9.3 billion, and worked closely with other Government Departments on the cross-Government taskforce on food and other essential supplies. Further to my earlier answer, the hon. Lady will have to wait for future fiscal events where benefit rates are set.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue. When it comes to jobs, community progression and our jobcentres, working through outreach with civil society and local charities is absolutely vital. My hon. Friend in the other place, the good Baroness Stedman-Scott, is very keen to continue doing this, and I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger) is very keyed up on it. We will not waste time and we will get on with it as soon as possible.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

The gap between local housing allowance rates and average rents for a two-bed property in Southwark is now over £1,000 a month, and raising the local housing allowance in line with the consumer prices index will do almost nothing to close the gap. By continuing to ignore the issue, the Secretary of State is continuing to contribute to entirely unnecessary homelessness. If the Government are serious about ending homelessness, will the Secretary of State urge her right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to use this week’s Budget to re-link the LHA to the bottom third of rents?

[Will Quince]

As the Secretary of State said a moment ago, local housing allowance rates are not intended to meet all rents in all areas. The LHA is designed to ensure a fair balance between supporting vulnerable people to meet their housing costs and public spending. From April 2020, LHA rates will be increased by inflation, but I join the Secretary of State in urging the Mayor of London to do far more in terms of supply.

Pension Funds: Financial and Ethical Investments

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey) on securing this important debate.

I commend the climate change protesters who have taken to our streets in recent weeks, including many schoolchildren from my constituency who will be out again on Friday. They have succeeded in putting climate change where it should always have been, at the top of the political agenda. They are right to protest and they are right not to rest until the action that we need is taken and carbon emissions are falling.

It is good that Parliament has declared a climate emergency, but we need action now that is commensurate with an emergency. Divestment is critical to that. One of the essential systemic changes that we need to make is to look at the big flows of investment finance in our economy, divert them away from harmful, polluting and exploitative fossil fuels and reinvest them to scale up sustainable zero-carbon change.

[Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. There are hundreds of billions of pounds in UK pension schemes, and asset owners sit on top of the investment scheme without realising the financial power that they wield. Should not it be made mandatory, so that there can be a transition to a low-carbon economy, for them to examine the situation and take action on the climate risks?

[Helen Hayes]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. To my mind, divestment is a no-brainer. As far as we can we must keep fossil fuels in the ground. We do not have the luxury of doing anything else. Yet for as long as the fossil fuel giants can draw down big investment finance they will keep extracting and selling their damaging products. As long as the development of sustainable alternatives is starved of investment finance, limiting their availability and keeping their cost high, consumers will remain addicted to fossil fuels. It is that simple.

Divestment is a big, systematic change that we can make now. I pay tribute to both local councils in my constituency, Lambeth and Southwark, which were among the first local authorities to divest their pension funds from fossil fuels. I am proud of their commitment, which shows that divestment is completely possible within the strict fiduciary duties of pension fund trustees. More than that, retaining funds in fossil fuels is increasing the risk of those investments over time. At City Hall Sadiq Khan is also showing great leadership on divestment, divesting the Greater London Authority’s assets, working to support boroughs and encouraging them to divest.

The parliamentary pension scheme remains invested in fossil fuels. Five of the top 20 investments of our pension fund are in fossil fuel companies. The pension fund trustees have been far too slow to react to calls for divestment and are still refusing to do so, despite the fact that more than a third of MPs have written to them about it. The divestment of our pension funds is a straightforward leadership action that Parliament should take. No increased risk is entailed and in fact the opposite is true. The climate change emergency demands it.

Finally, we need the law to drive a further change in divestment. Although arguably the law currently requires pension fund trustees to invest in line with the Paris agreement, new legislation is needed to clarify and strengthen the duty. Reporting of fossil fuel-based investments should be mandatory and there should be a duty on all investors to report on the alignment of their portfolios in relation to the Paris agreement. This cannot be left to chance. We will not tackle climate change by retaining the status quo and fiddling around the edges. We need systemic change and it must start with our own leadership and a legislative framework that drives investment finance nationally and globally away from fossil fuels and towards the sustainable investment we need.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

The hon. Gentleman and I are united in our desire for a Bill that addresses collective defined-contribution, compulsion on dashboards and the defined-benefit reforms that we all agree are both required and necessary. I am confident that with a constructive, cross-party approach, over the next few months, with the hon. Gentleman and other political parties, we can introduce those measures very soon.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

13. What assessment her Department has made of the effect of the roll-out of universal credit on the level of referrals to food banks.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

18. What assessment her Department has made of the effect of the roll-out of universal credit on the level of referrals to food banks.

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

Our own evidence does not show a direct link between the increase in food bank use and the roll-out of universal credit. As the Trussell Trust has said, it is impossible to identify one single cause. Universal credit spends £2 billion more than the system it replaces, and it incentivises work, providing a pathway out of poverty.

[Helen Hayes]

In my surgery on Friday, I met a family with very young children who have been without benefits to which they are entitled since before Christmas, due to mistakes by the DWP. They are already in housing rent arrears and reliant on the local food bank. Without resolving those errors, the DWP is now moving them on to universal credit, where the terrifying prospect of a five-week wait and no funds to repay an advance pose a real risk of homelessness. I want the Secretary of State not only to look into this case but to deal with the incompetence and cruelty in her Department, which are causing such misery for far too many people.

[Justin Tomlinson]

First, I give a commitment that, yes, I am very happy to look into that specific case. It highlights the problems with the legacy benefits, whereby £2.4 billion a year of benefits were missed. It was a complex, bureaucratic process where mistakes could happen and claimants—particularly vulnerable claimants —did not take what they were entitled to. Under universal credit, with personalised, tailored support, mistakes can be rectified more quickly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Just before I call the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), I can tell her that this morning I conducted my usual weekly Skype session with school students, and today it was with students at the outstanding Elm Wood Primary School in her constituency. I engaged with those quite superb, articulate and personable students, and with their class teacher, Stephanie Kamara, and the headteacher, Ms Myrtle Charles, who made a guest appearance. What a credit those students are to their teachers and parents.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

17. What discussions she has had with the Home Secretary on supporting people of the Windrush generation to access social security benefits.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Amber Rudd)]

I take a particular interest in ensuring that the Department for Work and Pensions liaises closely with the Home Office to make sure that the Windrush generation are properly supported. So far we have helped over 400 customers to swiftly confirm their status and access benefits.

[Helen Hayes]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am always proud of the students at Elm Wood Primary School, which is indeed an excellent school with brilliant students.

I have been writing to the Secretary of State for many months on behalf of my constituent, who was the first Windrush citizen to return to the UK in May last year. She has since been denied access to attendance allowance because she was not in the country during the assessment period. The only reason she was not in the country at the time was the illegal action of the British Government. I have been told by the DWP that she must wait until the Windrush compensation scheme is published and include within her claim compensation for benefits she is due now. That is absurd and unacceptable. Why is the Secretary of State, who presided over the Windrush scandal as Home Secretary, continuing to compound and extend the injustice that Windrush citizens are suffering by failing to put in place the support they need to access all the benefits to which they are entitled?

[Amber Rudd]

I would like to reassure the hon. Lady that I have looked into this case, and I do take seriously, as she and the House would expect, the issue of ensuring that the Windrush generation are supported correctly by the DWP. We have reinstated the claimant’s pension credit and have awarded arrears to date. With regard to the attendance allowance, I will be writing to the hon. Lady, and officials are working to resolve the matter. I will provide the letter as a matter of urgency.