Pensions and Benefits Uprating

Henry Smith Excerpts

Thursday 4th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

Indeed. My hon. Friend obviously writes very quickly, and he was correct in every particular. The increase in the pension rate for a single person is £2.85 a week and it is £4.55 a week for those on what we loosely call the couples rate. I can confirm that all the figures he gave were correct.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

Pensioners in Crawley will very much welcome what is a generous and fair increase in the state pension. What is my hon. Friend’s observation on the fact that barely more than half a dozen Labour Members have attended this statement, particularly given the fact that this is clearly good news for pensioners up and down the country?

[Steve Webb]

My hon. Friend puts his finger on it. The Opposition have struggled to find anything to criticise in the statement. So few of them have turned up because it is a positive measure both for pensioners and for vulnerable people in our society.

Universal Credit

Henry Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

No.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the forecast savings to the taxpayer are about £100 million in this financial year, and will be about £200 million in the coming tax year?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I can confirm that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 31st March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Let me remind the hon. Lady that, as I said earlier, for these people, and the previous Government made no effort whatsoever to get them back to work—[Interruption.] No, 2.5 million people were written off on sickness benefits under the previous Government. No one worked with them and about 1 million were left without anybody seeing them for nearly 10 years. That is the record of the previous Government. I simply remind the hon. Lady that since we came to power, some 22,000 have started a job for the first time and many thousands more have worked with the Work programme to get ready for work without a requirement to go to work. The programme is succeeding and improving all the time and this is the first time that the thousands who are going back to work have ever had help—they got none from the previous Government.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

T2. What is my right hon. Friend’s assessment of how the Government’s triple lock guarantee for increases in the state pension has benefited thousands of pensioners in my constituency and across the country?

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for flagging the fact that we have increased the basic state pension by whichever of earnings, prices or 2.5% gives the best outcome for pensioners. Compared with the earnings link, which we think the Opposition would have restored from 2012, that is an extra £440 a year in state pension for pensioners in our constituencies.

Pensions Strategy

Henry Smith Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right that products must be properly regulated. The difference between the current situation and what we propose is that, under our proposals, before going to independent financial advisers, people are guaranteed to have a conversation with somebody who is independent and on their side to talk them through their options. All too many people simply do not get that at the moment, and they risk making the wrong choice as a result. We will put that right.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

Despite the Labour party’s scaremongering since the Budget yesterday, will my hon. Friend confirm that other countries—such as the United States, Australia and Denmark—do not restrict access to pension funds for those seeking to access them on retirement?

Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 14th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The claimant commitment is about people’s obligations under the existing terms. They will have to seek work, attend interviews and try to get a job, and once they are offered a job they must take it. Those are the sanctions coming up under universal credit. People will lose benefits for three months for a first offence, six months for a second offence and three years for a third offence. Right now, zero-hours contracts are legal. If Labour wants to change the law, we want to hear that from the hon. Gentleman.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State update the House on the innovation fund and how it is helping separated families?

[Steve Webb]

This is money designed to help and support separated families. We have spent £6.5 million so far on seven projects in the voluntary and private sector designed to help with things such as mediation. Although it is early days, we have anecdotal examples whereby we have enabled families to function together for the benefit of the child, and whereby the child’s performance at school is improving as well as maintenance flowing.

Remploy

Henry Smith Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

I read out the names of the factories, including Bolton. It is anticipated that up to 10 employment opportunities for disabled people will result as social enterprises come forward. The hon. Gentleman is right: the factory may not be open at this moment but it is going through the process of opening, so considerable work is being done. That is why I can say that that has happened and is happening—we have been dealing with it for two years, knowing that it is happening.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that work programmes for the disabled should be efficient but, most important, they should be effective?

[Esther McVey]

My hon. Friend is correct. They have to be effective—that is what everybody wants—but the answer is more complex than that, because they have to be tailor-made and we have to look at the individual. So, yes, they must be efficient, but first and foremost they must be effective, caring and tailored to the individual.

Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

What is important is that hoteliers are able to use people who are best placed to support the visitors who stay in those hotels, whether those are young British people or people from other countries as well. I do not recognise the point that the hon. Gentleman is making.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

17. In welcoming the Government’s tourism strategy, may I ask my right hon. Friend to say a little more about how communities who are close to major gateways such as Gatwick airport can benefit from tourism so that people can enjoy, in my local case, the fantastic entertainment and retail facilities in Crawley and the beautiful countryside of west Sussex?

[Maria Miller]

It is right to point out that many areas of the country could be benefiting even more from tourism. That is why we are putting record levels of spend behind our domestic campaign to encourage people to consider Britain as the place for their holidays or short breaks.

0845 Phone Lines (DWP)

Henry Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 21st November 2012 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s support for my argument. He is right that thousands of people in his constituency, in mine and in the Minister’s will be affected by those premium-rate lines and the rip-off call charges that people can suffer. The cost of the call takes a big chunk out of already stretched budgets. That can put people off making calls to get the help they need.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[John Healey]

I was not aware of the hon. Gentleman’s interest in the debate beforehand, but I will of course give way.

[Henry Smith]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He will know from his time as shadow Health Secretary, which was more than a year ago, that phone lines are a problem not only for the Department for Work and Pensions, but for the health service. Contrary to Department of Health advice, many general practitioner services still have 0845 numbers. Surely the solution is to use geographical or 0300 numbers.

[John Healey]

I am glad I gave way and welcome the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. He is right, because guidance was issued in 2009—regulations were put in place in 2010, but they have not been enforced.

If it gives the hon. Gentleman any comfort, I ran a campaign in my local area because GP surgeries in Barnsley and Rotherham were using 0845 numbers for people who wanted access to the surgery. I am happy to say that all 16 of those using the numbers in Barnsley have switched to the landlines that the hon. Gentleman advocates, as have 22 out of the 24 GP centres using the numbers in Rotherham. I should tell the Minister, as the hon. Gentleman has, that change is possible and can be done. It requires the will of the Department for Work and Pensions, just as it does the will of the Department of Health and the NHS.

On calls to the Department for Work and Pensions, Mr Roger Clark of Goldthorpe put it to me like this:

“We cannot afford to do this out of our benefits with the cost of gas, electricity, water, food and fuel being so expensive”.

Quite simply, the Department is hitting the people that it is there to help. The situation is getting more serious. Many people now rely on mobiles. One in six people live in homes without landlines. Ninety-two per cent. of adults have a mobile phone, and the number is increasing.

The Secretary of State told me in writing in the summer:

“Jobcentre Plus is subject to the Department’s telephony numbering policy, which is that all calls should be free to our 0800 numbers to claim…State pension…Pension credit…Jobseekers allowance…Employment and support allowance…Emergency payments or crisis loans.”

That is correct, but it is misleading. Those are a small minority of dedicated DWP phone lines. As the Minister confirmed in a parliamentary answer last month, fully 87% of the Department’s phone lines use the 0845 number, including the disability living allowance and attendance allowance helplines; Jobseeker Direct, which helps people to find or make an appointment with Jobcentre Plus; all local jobcentres; Employment Direct, which is used for advertising jobs; the social fund; the winter fuel helpline; and the child maintenance line. The list goes on, and time is limited. In other words, people can pay up to 41p a minute in phone call charges for almost all inquiries to check the progress of applications, to ask for information and advice, to report a mistake or change in circumstances, and to make claims for some benefits and other support payments.

The other day, someone locally who helps others to deal with the problems they face in the benefits and tax credits system said:

“I called the Jobcentre and tax credit office last week for a lady only to find after looking at her itemised”

telephone

“bill it had cost her £4.55; and this was only the calls that could be checked as calls under 50p are not itemised.”

She added:

“To someone in this lady’s position as a single mum this is the equivalent of her daily food bill.”

This is not just a problem of call rates. We have an excellent welfare rights service, run by Rotherham district council. Staff there told me of a client this week who needed to check on the progress of her employment and support allowance claim. She has debts, as well as mental health difficulties. The advice worker said that

“she needed a great deal of encouragement from the adviser just to use the phone and she simply couldn’t afford to call the DWP. So she used the office landline, and the length of the two calls was over 30 minutes before she was then told she’d have to call back another time, as all the staff were busy.”

There are almost 8,000 people on jobseeker’s allowance in Barnsley, nearly 9,000 in Rotherham, and more than 45,000 across south Yorkshire. A further 38,000 across south Yorkshire receive income support and 37,000 get incapacity benefit. This is a scandal on a massive scale. The Department’s response to my FOI request showed that well over 30 million people call just seven of the DWP’s most commonly used inquiry lines each year—never mind the 141 other lines.

These 0845 numbers are formally called number translation services. The NTS is dialled by a caller and is diverted to its destination. This process can include features such as distributing calls between multiple sites, routeing calls according to the caller’s location and, of course, transmitting recorded announcements. But the key feature of these number translation services is that the call revenue from the customer can be—and normally is—shared between the telecoms company and the organisation receiving the call, the former receiving the access charge component and the latter receiving the service charge or the termination rate as it is known.

The Minister is relatively new to his brief, but the Government have had plenty of notice about the problems with the 0845 numbers. Back in 2006, Ofcom said:

“Ofcom continues to recommend that public bodies should not use NTS numbers exclusively…especially when dealing with people on low incomes or other vulnerable groups. The new 03 country-wide numbers, proposed as part of Ofcom’s Numbering Review, would be well suited to the needs of many public bodies currently using chargeable 08 numbers.”

Those 03 numbers were introduced the following year, and Ofcom recommends the use of these numbers, which provide the same additional functionality as 08 numbers but are priced the same as a geographic numbers and—crucially—have no revenue sharing.

The long-standing campaigner and expert David Hickson and the fair telecoms campaign take the same view—that 03 numbers are

“a perfectly acceptable option for normal engagement between citizens and public bodies”.

I go further, and Ministers make three arguments in response to my challenge. First they say that the DWP will ring people back, but too many constituents tell me that this is not offered and does not happen. The FOI figures I have show that hundreds of thousands of callers each week give up on getting through after being kept on hold and charged. More than one in three calls to the employment and support allowance helpline are abandoned before they are answered, but on average more than five minutes after they have been connected. Callers to the incapacity benefit reassessment line wait nearly 13 minutes without being answered before they hang up.

Secondly, Ministers say that there are customer access phones in most—but not all—jobcentres. Let me again quote from a constituent in Goldthorpe in Dearne who says that

“in my case the jobcentre at Goldthorpe the phone is in the corner where everybody who goes in to the office can overhear your conversations not in a sound proof booth so your conversations cannot be overheard.”

Frankly, people are having to give very private, personal and financial information through these phone lines. It is not acceptable to say, “There are these phones in the Jobcentre Plus office in the public space.”

Thirdly, the Department says that it does not benefit from the premium rate charges that people have to pay to ring it, but someone is making money from these calls. If the Government are not sharing the extra revenue and are letting the telecoms companies keep all the extra charges, the 0845 numbers are not just a bad deal for benefits claimants, but for the taxpayer.

Change is possible. I mentioned the changes to GP surgeries and the approach of the Department of Health and the NHS. The Minister might also care to look at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, because it ended a consultation on implementing the consumer rights directive, which was agreed by all member states in the EU last year. This will

“prohibit excessive phone charges for consumers contacting traders about existing contracts.”

In other words, all post-contract customer helplines will have to charge the consumer no more than the basic rate for a telephone call. According to the Department, the intention is

“that traders should not use high charges to deter existing customers with legitimate queries, complaints or cancellation requests from contacting them nor derive revenue benefit from such contacts”.

The parallels are clear; the lessons are clear. I hope the Minister and his colleagues in the DWP will learn those lessons. Because things are poised to get much worse now is the time for him to act. I fear that there could be an explosion of inquiries and problems for people because of the current turmoil in the benefit system at the very time the Government are cutting face-to-face service staff and forcing people to use phones instead. The combination of sudden cuts in benefits payments, delays in decisions and the introduction of universal credit next year could lead to chaos and much higher costs for those making calls.

What should the Minister do? Responsibility for running an efficient and equitable system of benefit support lies with the Government. I see contact centres and phone lines for access as part of the running costs of government. Therefore, there is a strong, principled case for making free the phone access that people need if they are to claim and to continue to receive their benefits, tax credits, pensions or child support. I want the Government to make these changes.

After all, the Department makes calls free with the 0800 numbers for new claims for some benefits. With the Ofcom changes to come in shortly, that will apply to all mobile calls, not just landline calls. As a minimum, all lines for all dealings with the DWP should be switched to 03 numbers, so that the cost is never more than calls to a 01 or a 02 number, and they must be part of any inclusive discount schemes in the same way. These numbers were launched five years ago for Government, public bodies, charities and not-for-profit organisations to use. Ofcom has reserved 0345 numbers for each of the equivalent 0845 numbers, so that the switch could be made with minimum cost and minimum confusion.

Finally, I called this debate to expose the extent of the rip-off rates that many of the poorest, most distressed and highly vulnerable are paying to get the welfare support to which they are entitled. I leave the last words to a local man from Barnsley who said:

“You haven’t the money to pay to phone these numbers, and yet you have to phone them. It’s a poor person’s trap.”

It is unfair and unjustifiable, and it must change.

Youth Unemployment

Henry Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Byrne]

What the hon. Gentleman’s constituents want to know is what this Government are doing for unemployed people in his constituency now. He might like to live in the past; his constituents want to know what he is doing for them today.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

One of the things this Government can do, and are doing, is to provide more apprenticeship places. Does the right hon. Gentleman welcome, as I do, the 70% rise in apprenticeship places in Crawley that has just been announced?

Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

12. What assessment he has made of the potential effects on the payment of benefits of the reasoned opinion from the European Commission on the UK’s right to reside test.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

19. What assessment he has made of the potential effects on the payment of benefits of the reasoned opinion from the European Commission on the UK’s right to reside test.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)]

We accept our responsibility in supporting EU citizens who work here and pay their tax and national insurance, but it is clearly completely unacceptable that we should be asked to open our welfare system to people who have never worked in or contributed to the United Kingdom and who have no intention of doing so. We are considering all the details of the Commission’s reasoned opinion, but we are absolutely committed to ensuring that the UK retains control of its welfare policies.

[Chris Grayling]

The best way for us to get the message across to the Commission about the need for change is to demonstrate that this is not a matter for the UK alone. I am therefore forging partnerships with my counterparts in other member states, most of whom have the same concerns. We have to make the Commission recognise that this kind of land grab of an area that should be a national competence is unacceptable. It has all kinds of political connotations, and the Commission must change its view.

[Henry Smith]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his previous answer. Can he tell us what steps his Department will be taking to monitor foreign nationals who are receiving UK benefits?

[Chris Grayling]

I can indeed. One of the things that surprised me most on taking office was the fact that the previous Administration had made no attempt whatever to identify how many people from overseas were receiving benefits. We are now doing that work. We aim to publish the results in the next few weeks, and we will aim to learn lessons from what we find.