Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Helen Whately and Hannah Bardell

Tuesday 17th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

My hon. Friend tempts me with a visit to a vineyard in her constituency. She has already made the argument very strongly—when I recently met the wine and spirits all-party group. Representing a wine-producing constituency, she will appreciate, I am sure, our announcement of the reduction in the duty rate for sparkling wine. As I said to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) earlier, I am speaking to businesses in the sector to make sure that we get right the practicalities of introducing these reforms.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

T2. Speaking of broad shoulders, I am interested to know what makes the Chancellor, one of the richest men in the Commons and, indeed, in the UK, in any way qualified to make policy or to help the poorest people in my constituency who, as a result of the Tory cost of living crisis, have to choose between heating and eating, which he and others like him will never have to face?

Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (Ratification of Convention) Bill

Debate between Helen Whately and Hannah Bardell

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 16th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

Before I became a Member of Parliament one thing I did as a volunteer was work in a homeless outreach service, spending time, usually late at night, finding people who were going to be sleeping rough that night and seeing whether we could help get them into some kind of shelter or safe place to spend the night. On one of my most memorable nights doing that, I met a lady sleeping rough on the steps of a church in Brixton. As we took her to a shelter, I asked her about her circumstances. She told me that she was married but had fled her home that night because she was frightened of staying there; because of what her partner might do to her she was frightened for her life. She felt safer sleeping rough on the steps of a closed church in a dark and frightening park in Brixton than spending a night at home under her own roof. The fact that someone could feel safer sleeping rough than in the same house or flat as their partner brought home forcefully to me the enormous and very present threat that violence from their partner is in someone’s life.

That was just one example of what we have been talking about today, the day-in, day-out abuse of women in their homes—in what should be a safe place. That abuse also affects men and children, but we know that it predominantly affects women and girls, as they make up two thirds of the victims. We are therefore rightly focusing on what can be done to help that sector of society, although we are not overlooking the fact that we should also be doing something for men under threat of violence as well, and it is right that that has been brought up in this debate.

Other Members have talked about the enormous scale of this violence in our society. I am short of time, so will not reiterate the figures of more than 1 million women subjected to domestic abuse every year in the UK. But I want to put on the record that I welcome this debate, and congratulate the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) on bringing the Bill forward and on all the work she has put in and support she has garnered. It is so important to be talking about this issue here in the UK, in Europe and the world, to shift some of the cultural norms that so often underpin domestic violence and try to change the childhood experiences that can lead to someone thinking, as an adult, that the way to solve a problem is through violence rather than any other means.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

The hon. Lady talks about scale. I have to say that since being elected I have been very shocked at the scale and severity of some of the cases that have come to me, including that of a constituent whose child was murdered by her partner and who had to change her name and move a number of times. Does the hon. Lady agree that refuges and women’s aid organisations, such as my one in West Lothian, need the Bill, to give them the legislative framework, the power and the resources to continue to do their work and up the ante?

[Helen Whately]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, and I will be supporting the Bill. On the importance of local refuges and services, I would like to mention one in my own constituency, Swale Action to End Domestic Abuse, which provides one-stop shops and drop-ins for people affected by or suffering from domestic abuse, and its success in reducing levels of repeat domestic abuse incidents in the area. Sadly, that is reducing the number of repeat incidents rather than preventing them in the first place, but it is a step forward.

We heard today a paradoxical point about progress. The increase in the levels of reporting of domestic abuse and of convictions might not seem like a good thing, but paradoxically it is a good thing and a sign of progress. [Interruption.] I think I might have run out of time, so I will sit down.

Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill

Debate between Helen Whately and Hannah Bardell

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 2nd December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

It is impossible to know how many people do not go to their MP, but I make my best efforts to be as accessible as possible to my constituents so that people know that they can come to me for help. What I find when following up on individual cases with the DWP, whether relating to sanctions or other problems with the benefit system, is that it is extraordinarily responsive and willing to review cases and reverse decisions that turn out to be flawed. I am reasonably confident that the DWP steps up and corrects mistakes when they are made.

[Hannah Bardell]

I cannot help but notice a deep irony in the hon. Lady’s comments. She cites examples of where the system has failed and of when her constituents have not been served well, and my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South is bringing forward a Bill that will help all our constituents and help the system to be fairer. How can she not see that irony and not support the Bill?

[Helen Whately]

I wonder whether the hon. Lady has been listening to what I have been saying. I think I have recognised that the system has problems. Mistakes will be made in any system of such a scale, but that does not mean that the answer is to impose some more top-down legislation. It is better to try to improve how the system works and to support jobcentres that might not be doing so well to come up to the level of those that are doing best.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Helen Whately and Hannah Bardell

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Helen Whately]

Q 171 I am hearing a lot of you referring to the income measure, but what are the panel’s thoughts on the way that a relative income measure means that reported child poverty falls during a period of recession, when median income falls, and rises in a period of economic growth, when incomes rise?

Professor Gordon: That is one of the major objections to that one measure. The Child Poverty Act 2010 had a series of tiered measures so you could get an overall picture. If you have just one measure, you get an artefact, but the other measures pick up on that. The relative falls, the absolute rises, the combined low income and material deprivation rises, and probably so does the persistent poverty measure. By looking at all four measures, you get a full picture of what is happening.

Matt Padley: The line is not necessarily always helpful. Just getting people over a line does not solve poverty. The bundle together indicates a direction of travel, which is fundamentally important. Without that, you cannot track the direction of travel. When all those things are moving in the same direction, you know that things are getting worse or better.

Alison Garnham: The fact that we had four measures enabled us to explain what was happening to the headline indicator. Basically, everybody was doing badly, so people at the bottom were not doing so badly in relation to the middle, but the absolute poverty indicator was going up so we knew that people at the bottom were losing income. The group of indicators together gives you a powerful explanatory tool.

Dr Callan: The only thing is that if you have a legally binding income target, we are right back to where we were before. The Government could be subject to judicial review for, frankly, doing the right thing: taking a more effective approach to poverty and tackling life chances.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

Q 172 I thank the panel for joining us. I would like to pick up on the removal of the targets. It seems to me that the targets are being removed because the Government had no chance of meeting them. That in itself is a very dangerous move. I also want to pick up on some of the observations that have been made about the rise in the national wage, which as we all know is not a living wage, because the living wage has been set independently at £7.85 outside London and £9.20 within London. Even the Institute for Fiscal Studies said that the welfare cuts, coupled with the moderate increase, will lead to only a 13% benefit, and the vast majority will have their income reduced significantly. The Scottish National party believes that we should not remove the targets. Do you agree with that? At the very least, should we delay any removal so we can properly consider and review what impact it will have?

Alison Garnham: Yes, I would support that. I have said that I am in favour of keeping the targets. It is worth pointing out the kind of change that was driven while child poverty was falling. We know that as people’s income was improving and child poverty was falling there was more spending on fruit, vegetables and children’s books, and less spending on tobacco and alcohol. We saw improvements in child wellbeing in 36 out of 48 OECD indicators. It was not just about people simply getting more money; there were big impacts on what was happening to families, too. That is one of the reasons why we need to continue to track it. One of the important things about the indicators we have is that we have an income series that goes back to 1961, so we can compare historically. We can also compare internationally, because these are the measures used in the EU, the OECD and the International Monetary Fund, so we are able to see how we are doing in relation to other countries.

Dr Callan: May I point out some other drawbacks? It has already been mentioned that in the recession it looks like child poverty is falling, which does not make sense. There are other reasons why the targets were unhelpful. There is no sense of how families’ circumstances change when they move in and out of poverty across a certain line, and there is no distinguishing between those a long way from the line and those just below it. Obviously it is nuanced—you do very careful analysis, I appreciate that—but we get into this poverty-plus-a-pound issue, where somebody is just over the line but their life circumstances may not have changed one bit. It is misleading, really—

Welfare Reform and Work Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Helen Whately and Hannah Bardell

Thursday 10th September 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Helen Whately]

Q 48 The point about the implementation of that 30 hours is important—how it is done.

Octavia Holland: It is. I think a lot of lessons need to be learnt from the 15 hours. There are providers who will say, “Okay, I’ll offer the 30 hours, but I’ll offer only two 30-hour-only places. The rest will be full-time at a much higher rate.” If you are trying to help low-income families, you really need to address those issues.

Charlotte Pickles: Can I answer that? The 30 hours, and the increase from 70% to 85% coverage in UC, is a very positive step forward. However, I agree that, if the 30 hours is a term-time only offer, it is a problem, given that you do not just work in term time.

However, to go back to your point about Jobcentre Plus and the flexibility and freedoms that individual jobcentres have, I would say that more work needs to be done to understand the difference in quality of that provision from jobcentre to jobcentre. Some jobcentres are excellent, provide fantastic support and do everything that they possibly can using their flexibility and discretion to do positive things with all sorts of cohorts. Some jobcentres are doing a lot less. One challenge I encourage the Department to look at is measuring jobcentres based on job outcomes and not off-flow from benefits, because we are holding providers to account in a way that we are not holding jobcentres to account. That is a real problem for understanding the performance of jobcentres.

Octavia Holland: I just wanted to point out that over two thirds of single parents enter the three lowest-paid occupation groups, and that training to upskill adults has been cut by 20% over the last five years. Actually, what needs to be looked at is the quality of jobs that people are moving into, and how that benefits their long-term independence and the support that they can give their families. Talking about work is obviously important—single parents want to work—but if it is a low-skilled job and they will be trapped in a low-income job with no prospects for moving on, the benefits that that will bring their family are not as profound as they could be.

Charlotte Pickles: Can I add briefly to that? It is absolutely true that we need to support people to progress when they are in work, but the evidence clearly shows that a job is better than no job, so I do not think we should be disparaging entrance in to low-skilled jobs, but we should be focusing on helping people progress once they have gone into them.

[Hannah Bardell]

Q 49 Should we not be stipulating that it be decent and fair work, rather than any work? The current statistics are one hour in any work in the week before. Should the legislation not stipulate another term of reference?

Charlotte Pickles: I do not think so. I think you need to focus on getting people into work. As we know, for some people, doing a few hours of work is a very positive thing. Also, the evidence base shows us that a job is better for people’s wellbeing than focusing on trying to get a—[Interruption.]