Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Helen Morgan and Tom Pursglove

Monday 23rd January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

T4. I have been contacted by two separate disabled constituents who were previously eligible for the warm home discount. This year of all years, however, they have been told that they are no longer eligible, because of the way that the various support schemes interact. Will the Minister meet me to look into those two individual cases, and the wider issue, to ensure that the most vulnerable people are not missing out on the support that they need?

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Tom Pursglove)]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s question. It is important to point out that the reform to the warm home discount, which expands the support available, means that 160,000 more households where a person is disabled or has a long-term illness will receive a rebate. If she provides me with the details of the cases in question, I will be happy to look at them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Helen Morgan and Tom Pursglove

Monday 5th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

I thank the shadow Minister for raising the issue of Carolynne’s situation. I am, of course, under no illusions about how challenging many people are finding the current circumstances and climate. We are providing the package of support that I have already described—which is the right thing to do—in addition to the discretionary help that is there to address particularly pressing needs in individual cases. As the hon. Lady will know, the Chancellor announced in the autumn statement that as part of ongoing future work we would be considering, for instance, social tariffs, and I also want to look into what more we can do in the longer term to help families deal with continuing significant costs.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

14. If he will take steps to compensate women born on or after 6 April 1950 affected by changes to the state pension age.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Helen Morgan and Tom Pursglove

Monday 5th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

I would of course be delighted to meet my hon. Friend to talk about this issue in more detail. Monkey dust is a street name for certain cathinones. The Government recognise the harm of cathinones, which is why they are controlled under class B of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. The penalty for supplying a class B drug is 14 years in prison, an unlimited fine, or both. There are no plans to reclassify those drugs, although the Government keep drug classification under review and will seek to take account of any new evidence of harms.

[Helen Morgan]

Over the summer I met residents and parents in North Shropshire who are concerned about the presence of county lines drug networks in our market towns. Our local police force has done a superb job in breaking up some of those lines, but more needs to be done. The Government promised an additional 311 police officers in West Mercia, but at the moment we are only at 165—far off target. Can the Minister reassure me that those additional police officers will be recruited into West Mercia to tackle the ongoing county lines problem, which exists in rural areas as well as urban ones?

[Tom Pursglove]

I thank the hon. Lady for approaching this issue so constructively, because the matter of county lines gangs is of huge concern to communities both urban and rural, as she alludes to. The team in the Home Office will work very constructively and intensively with her force to ensure that we see the uplift programme through, so that her constituents feel the maximum benefit of the highest number of officers possible out on the streets, catching criminals and deterring crime.