Oral Answers to Questions

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

I would not seek to tell anybody what they should do. We seek to work closely with people to enable and support them as best we can. We are doing that by trebling the discretionary payment to help people into work, because if they are on working tax credits, they will be exempt from the benefit cap.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I can tell the House that

“carers caring for an adult disabled child or other adult relative could see their benefits capped, because the DLA of the people they care for is not considered to be in the same benefit package or ‘household’ as the carers’–even if they are living together.”

This is a direct quote from Carers UK. Does the Minister agree with Carers UK that it is confusing, complicated and simply unfair to protect some carers and not others?

[Esther McVey]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that the definition of “household” has been in place for some time, so what has happened has always been in place. As the Secretary of State said, there are many exemptions from the cap. Working with the discretionary payment, we can work together to get this right.

Oral Answers to Questions

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. That is why, for example, we encourage people who feel that they cannot communicate at an assessment to take a friend or a carer with them to help in that process, and we gave support to people to help them to complete the ESA50. We want to make the process of assessment as easy and as straightforward as possible by giving vulnerable claimants the help that they need.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

In my constituency, organisations such as Yellow provide accommodation solutions for young people under 25 so that they can get into work. In his deliberations on the future of housing benefit for the under-25s, how will the Secretary of State identify those youngsters who have suffered traumatic family break-ups, dysfunctional families, and sexual and physical abuse and separate them from the others? It is a genuine practical question.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we would make every effort to ensure that those most vulnerable people would not necessarily be included in a change like this. As I said earlier, this is not a policy at the moment; it is a consultation, and we are happy to listen to anybody about the groups they think ought not to be included in such a policy. I have an open door in that regard, and he is more than welcome to come and see me.

Oral Answers to Questions

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jo Swinson]

Of course, the pay gap figures have just been updated and published this morning and they have come down slightly, but my hon. Friend is right to highlight that they are still too high. My hon. Friend highlights the fact that having more women on boards can help companies’ performance. I encourage employers to sign up to our “Think, Act, Report” initiative, so that they properly use the talents of women within their businesses at all levels.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

4. What steps she is taking to ensure that the London 2012 Paralympic games leave a lasting legacy for disabled people across the UK.

[The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Maria Miller)]

The Paralympics were hugely successful. Now, we must ensure that we convert this success into an Olympic and Paralympic legacy that lasts beyond one great summer. The Government are working with Lord Coe so that the legacy programme delivers real and tangible benefits, including for disabled people.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The Paralympic games sent a tremendously positive message across wider society. Does the Minister regret, therefore, that the aim of achieving disability equality has been dropped by the Department for Work and Pensions? Is that not a completely contradictory message to send?

[Maria Miller]

I know from personal experience that at the heart of everything the Department does is giving people an opportunity to play a full role in society and looking at people for what they can do, not what they cannot do. That is exactly what we should be doing to support disabled people into work.

Universal Credit and Welfare Reform

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Tuesday 11th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I am pleased to speak in the debate and I applaud the many constructive contributions that have been made. I hope I can do as well. I start with one principle that I believe is agreed throughout the Chamber: that any reform now or in the future should be designed to enable people to get into work and to ensure that work pays. However, many concerns have been raised about whether the Government’s reforms will work or whether they will unravel rapidly and spectacularly.

I want to focus on the narrow subject of some of the most vulnerable people who might be badly affected by the reforms, if the reforms are not right and delivered correctly. I want to ensure that they are protected so that I do not meet in homes in my constituency, or in my office, people who say that they have been badly let down by unintended consequences. As the Minister knows, such people will visit his office, and they will be real people with real tragedies.

Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, who is far better versed with the group I want to talk about than I am, said:

“Cuts—such as those to support for most disabled children, and disabled adults living alone—are going to make the future considerably bleaker for many of the most disadvantaged households in Britain.”

I hope she is not right, but let me develop some of the detail behind that direct criticism of the reforms under discussion, which are to be rolled out progressively.

I welcome the fact that I am following the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd). He has a great background in representing some of the concerns we are discussing, and I am sure he would want the Minister to respond to them. The Minister can do so in his closing remarks, but I am happy for his officials to write to me.

Let us consider claimants who have children with disabilities. Under the proposals, the lower rate that will be available to families with disabled children is, if I understand correctly, significantly lower than the current disabled child element of child tax credit. I understand from Citizens Advice in my community, and others, that it has been estimated that the proposals will make such families worse off by up to £30 per week. If so, I guarantee that those families will wash up not only at citizens advice bureaux but in my constituency office, and I need to know what to say to them, where they can turn and how we can help them.

Another group is claimants who have disabilities. As hon. Members have regularly heard in their offices, disability premiums have always been a major aspect of the current means-tested support and recognise the many and complex additional costs faced by claimants with disabilities from things such as dietary requirements, extra heating for or adaptation of their homes, special aids, and so on. The disability premium is worth about £58 per week, and the disability element of the working tax credit about £54 a week. If claimants are to be significantly disadvantaged, I seek the Minister’s assurance that the proposed package will mitigate that. We are led to understand that around 500,000 fewer people will qualify for the new support when the disability living allowance is replaced by the personal independence payment. Once again, those people will turn up in the advice surgeries of MPs around the UK.

One final aspect concerns joint claimants who have limited capabilities. Under universal credit, couples who have limited capability at work, or in getting ready for work, will receive only one element that recognises restricted functions. Two individuals in a household might have much greater expenditure, but that is not reflected in the payment, which covers only one individual. Once again, those people will be coming to my surgery, unless the Minister can give a clear and categorical assurance that the proposals include some form of mitigation for those claimant groups, which include many tens of thousands of individuals.

I want to be broadly optimistic about the proposals and the principles behind them, but I share the worries that hon. Members have expressed—the proposals could unravel and there has been delay, and we do not know whether the planning and implementation will be effective and make them work. However, I want to ask the Minister specifically about the claimant groups who are at or below the poverty line, who could be the most significantly impacted by the changes. Have they been taken into account and is proper mitigation in place? If not, will he think again?

--- Later in debate ---

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

Almost 20 Members took part in the debate, and we are grateful to all of them. The high point was when my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) suggested that the contribution of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State had been so definitive that we should have a parliamentary procedure under which the debate simply ceases and applause follows.

We have heard some powerful contributions. I was particularly struck by what Members had to say about the attitudes to work that they had encountered and the experiences of some of their constituents, as well as about the barriers to work. My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) mentioned a letter he received before being elected to the House from someone who said she was demoralised by the fact that it did not pay to work. My hon. Friend said he came to this House wanting to do something about that, and he can be proud to be a part of a coalition that is doing something about it. My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison) mentioned the experience of a nurse who was heckled on her way to work for being stupid for going to work at all, because why would she bother? We have to end that situation. Although Opposition Front Benchers say they think work should always pay, they failed to deliver that when in office.

We must not lose sight of the big picture of this reform. We are bringing together separate strands into a single integrated system so that people do not have to go for their housing benefit to the council, for their jobseeker’s allowance to the DWP, and for their tax credits to HMRC. That will be good for tackling poverty, as it will lift many families and children out of poverty. It will also be good for tackling benefit take-up, because instead of having to claim several separate benefits, people will make a single claim. The suggestion that somehow the previous tax credits system was used as a model is absolutely extraordinary.

Someone said, “We all remember how terrible it was when people had their tax credits overpaid or under-claimed, or underpaid and claimed back.” That will come to an end because people will get the money when they need it. Under the real-time information, when their wage goes down, their tax credits—now their universal credit—will increase. They will not have to wait three years for a reassessment to claw back an underpayment; it will happen when they need the money. That is the way to tackle poverty.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The Government have justified their refusal to reveal the business case and, following an earlier intervention by my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Dame Joan Ruddock), have declined to answer how many additional hours of work will be generated as a result of these changes. May I make things simpler? I ask the Minister: will these changes in the business case result in an increase in hours worked?

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for bringing me to the issue of work incentives. It was central to this debate, so let me address the point directly. Two separate work incentives have been muddled together in this debate, including, I regret, by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field). The first is the incentive to take a job and the second is the incentive for those in work to work more hours. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, in introducing this debate, identified the fact that universal credit significantly improves the incentive to take a job. That is fundamental in order to move from a situation where, as we have heard, millions of people are in workless households where nobody is working. Of course the incentives for the second earner are important, but those for the first earner are even more important. We make no apology for prioritising them; we want far more households to have someone in work, which is why we have structured this as we have. We are therefore putting £2.5 billion extra per year, at a time when we are having to save on welfare, into in-work benefits, thereby improving the return to work. It must be the case that if we are spending more on in-work benefits, we are improving the incentive to work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

When we take into account all the policy changes, I can indeed confirm that. The Opposition keep saying that long-term youth unemployment has gone up under this Government, but the previous Government hid the true picture of youth unemployment by moving people on to a training allowance. They did not then show up in the figures and that masked the true picture. We are being open and honest and telling the truth about the challenges that we face.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

T6. As Member of Parliament for Ogmore, I have a direct and democratic interest in knowing how many of my constituents who are ex-incapacity benefit and are now on jobseeker’s allowance have been referred to the Work programme. Has the Minister now lifted the ban on disclosure of that information, as he promised in January, and if not, why not?

[Chris Grayling]

We have already published the referral numbers to the Work programme and we continue to publish estimates of the number of referrals to the Work programme. Every single person on employment and support allowance has access to the Work programme today, and every single person who moves from employment and support allowance to jobseeker’s allowance has access to the Work programme within three months.

Employment Support

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 7th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I assure my hon. Friend that I would very much like to work with him on that and look at the proposal he mentions. We have spoken at length about this and I am sure that, working with officials, we can make sure that the details are available to anyone who has a firm proposal to put forward.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister to the Chamber this evening, but hon. Members will note that a Labour Minister in the Welsh Assembly saw fit to answer questions on this, with an oral statement, seven hours ago. In it he said:

“I regret that repeated requests by Welsh ministers for a constructive dialogue on Remploy factories in Wales have not been taken up by the UK Government.”

Will the Minister accede to the immediate request of the Welsh Assembly Government for discussions about the Remploy assets so that they can work with unions, social enterprises and others to make sure that we have viable ongoing businesses in all those premises?

[Maria Miller]

Officials have already met officials in the Wales Office and I am meeting with Ministers next week.

Work Capability Assessments

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2012 Westminster Hall

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex) for introducing the debate and I thank other hon. Members for the way they have spoken on behalf of their constituents on an issue of genuine national interest. We could all, across parties, cite chapter and verse on the people who come to our surgeries and citizens advice bureaux who have been made desperate by the system’s failings. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) made the point that if the same situation occurred under a Labour Administration—the Minister has inherited some of this, but the national roll-out before we have solved the problems is a significant issue—we would say the same thing to a Labour Minister: how do we change this to make it work?

I have not only seen constituents, but have regularly been to appeals and seen Atos do assessments as well. I have seen the process first hand all the way through, not only when the constituent arrives in my office and says, “What is happening? Why is my life being destroyed for months while my benefits are suspended? I’m taken off benefits and then seven months later, my appeal goes through successfully, along with a huge proportion of others.” I have seen the process, and as a former Minister who was previously employed in private industry looking at systems management, I can tell the Minister that this is not working. There is a genuine issue and the process and procedures are not fit for purpose—it is so damn obvious when there is this number of successful appeals.

The underlying principle that the Minister must work with is compassion, and we would support him in that, but the system lacks compassion. It has to be fair to both taxpayers—a point made earlier—and those who are going through the process. There are people who are unable to elucidate their circumstances fully when they fill in a form and who are not going to give 101% when they sit in front of somebody tapping into a computer keyboard without making eye contact. There are doctors who will not spend 15 minutes filling in the long narrative history of a medical condition that would lead to the right decision in the first place. Therefore, when people fill in the form for the first time, the vast majority do not fill it in in the detail needed. It is a tick-box exercise, and people have a lot of fear and misunderstanding over that. They tend to come to us, as MPs, after they have failed and are going in for the interview. We say to them, “Take someone in with you, because at least then they can give you some support and guidance.”

The system must be based on compassion, and at the moment, it is not. I say that because I have seen the Atos procedure and the interview, and interestingly, even though I went into the office in Bridgend to see it, I was not allowed to sit and watch an interview, even if somebody was willing, but I could see the appeals. The staff were very kind and as informative as they could be. I was allowed to watch an abbreviated recording of a mock-up interview, in which we saw minimal eye contact, because there cannot be eye contact when someone is tapping away at a keyboard and asking, “How did you get here today? Oh, so you did that,” and then goes on to the next question and the next. It is completely different from the panel. I was allowed to sit and watch it taking place for three hours, with four people—lay people, someone from a medical background and someone from a legal or judicial background—genuinely dealing with individuals with compassion.

I shall give the Minister an illustration of what should be happening to cut the cost for the taxpayer further downstream. A young chap walked in and sat down looking completely healthy. He was in his early 20s. He had someone with him, as one should have at an appeal. The panel started asking him questions. He looked completely fit. “Do you go out with your friends?” “Yeah, I go out with my friends.” “Do you socialise regularly?” “Yeah, I tend to go out every Friday night.” Based on those kinds of questions and the fact that he could walk a certain distance, that guy had been declared completely fit for work. When a gentleman on the appeal panel asked him where he lived, he replied, “Merthyr.” The panel just happened to know Merthyr. “Where do you go out in Merthyr?” “Town centre.” “When you go out socialising with your friends on a Friday night, where do you go? Do you go to clubs?” “No, we don’t do that. We just mooch around town.” “Where do you go?” “We get off the bus and walk right to the centre of town.” “How far is that?” “From the bus to the town centre is about 50 yards.” “I know Merthyr quite well, so do you then go to the rugby field?” “No, I don’t.” “Why not?” “Because if I walk more then 50 yards, I not only get out of breath, but collapse with the condition I have.” None of that detail comes out in the initial stages. I am not saying that we have to flip the process round completely, but its lack of compassion, tick-box nature, lack of fairness to the taxpayer in allowing costs to escalate down the chain and to the individual, and the concerns over good decision making and managerial process mean that it simply is not working.

My message to the Minister is straightforward. The worst thing in the debate would be for him to go into denial or to say that the system is bedding in or just needs a bit of tweaking. There are fundamental issues with the design of the process, and the number of appeals that are successful when the right information is in place and the sheer superficiality of the initial contact with Atos show that the system is not working. I note the earlier comments about whether Atos follows procedures correctly. Whether the problems are inherited or caused by the new work capability assessment or by the national roll-out, the procedures at the Atos end are simply wholly inadequate.

The Minister could save the taxpayer a lot of money if he got this right. He could save a lot of angst and worry, not only for those with fluctuating conditions, sensory impairment or other needs, but for those who are genuinely trying to be honest and fair about their condition and those who want to work if they are fairly assessed. At the moment there is a terror of going through the process. When people come to my office now, I cannot give them a lot of hope, as an MP, about fairness in the system.

My hon. Friends have mentioned the statistics and the national analysis by Citizens Advice and others. As much as the press loves to scaremonger and paint pictures that vilify some of these people and their “scrounger mentality”—“Get them back into work!”—there are many people who want to get back to work and many others who are being unfairly put through pain and anguish when they should not be, such as those suffering from long-term conditions.

Redesign the system, so that it has compassion and is expert-led at the gateway, and improve communication between the Departments. Do not go into denial. This is not a matter of blame. We do not blame the Minister, but we will if he does not solve the problem, because it is now on his watch. We will applaud him if he can turn this round, because we also want people back in work. The great innovation was to turn the system round to take the emphasis away from incapacity and towards capacity—what can people do? There is cross-party support for that, but the changes must be driven with compassion and fairness all the way through. At the moment, the system is wasteful, inexpert and, in terms of processes and management, shot full of holes. Please make it fit for purpose and we will be here in six months applauding you.

[Hywel Williams (in the Chair)]

Order. I have no power whatsoever to make it fit for purpose. The hon. Gentleman’s remarks should be directed to the Minister.

Living Standards

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman’s heart is in the right place, but his head is in the clouds. We can argue over definitions and data, but let me read to him the response of the chief executive of Citizens Advice, who says:

“The Chancellor has broken the promise he made in last year’s Budget to protect families on the lowest incomes from the impact of last year’s harsh cuts by increasing child tax credits above inflation, leaving them now with no protection at all… Make no mistake, this—

yesterday’s announcements—

“means children in the poorest homes are at risk of going cold and hungry to pay for the new schemes the Chancellor has announced today”.

Why do the poorest in society have to pay for the schemes that were announced yesterday? The right hon. Gentleman’s heart is in the right place, but he has not thought this through.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

It is not just the poorest who are paying. Everyone will have to bear a proportion, because everybody is going to pay for this. Yesterday the Opposition claimed that the shocks that caused inflation are not relevant, yet today they stand there and tell us that it is all down to inflation. They need to make up their minds which case they want to mount first.

--- Later in debate ---

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I am pleased to be called to speak in this important debate to which there have been so many good contributions, but I shall introduce a bit of a downer. If the ghost of Christmas present visited the streets of Ogmore and Bridgend as we run towards Christmas, he would not find a great sight, because we are seeing rising household prices, and a squeeze on incomes because incomes are falling. People who work in retail parks and shops are being asked to reduce their hours, and there is greater job uncertainty. It is not only low earners in working families who are being squeezed; middle earners are being squeezed too. There is a squeeze on the high street, and shops in my constituency are being closed for the first time in 20 years.

There are rises in some areas; there are rising queues at the jobcentres. I am glad the Secretary of State is back in his place. He visited Wales not long ago, and we were pleased to see him. He visited Merthyr where he said there were plenty of jobs out there. On the day he was there, there were 39 jobs, but there were 1,670 people chasing those jobs. He suggested looking in Cardiff, where things would be better. They were better: there were 1,700 jobs there, and 15,000 people were chasing them. I suspect that the situation is no better today. That is the backdrop to this debate.

There are rising queues at my surgeries, at citizens advice bureaux, at housing advice surgeries and, most chronically, at food handout centres. Queues at food handout centres in this century are a repercussion of the current dilemma. Great people are setting up food distribution centres to hand out food, not just to low-earning families but to people who would previously have been thought to be relatively prosperous and doing okay, but are now finding that the squeeze is so acute that they must rely on food handouts.

That is a toxic mix. We are not seeing a rebalancing of the economy between public and private sectors jobs, or seeing private sector growth. We are seeing a rebalancing of the economy from growth to chronic contraction. Why is that coming about, and who is being hurt most? I suggest that the cumulative effect of some of the Government’s new and current policies—those they have put in place over the last year, as well as yesterday—is hurting working families, women and those who are struggling to make ends meet. The Department for Work and Pensions is cutting child care costs from 80% to 70%. That is £13 a week for working families in Ogmore, and around 400 families will be worse off. An Ogmore family with two children will lose an additional £3.70 a week by 2013-14 thanks to the Government’s freeze on child benefit.

In-work families in Ogmore will be £100 per claimant worse off thanks to the freezing of the basic and 30-hour elements of the working tax credit. An average Ogmore family will lose £160 a year because of the increase in the tax credit withdrawal rate. The baby element of child tax credit has been scrapped. No one can put a price on a baby—I have three children in my family—but some money can be paid towards that. The credit was £545, but it has now been scrapped. The average loss from the cut in the second income threshold will be £285 per family. In total, around 9,100 families in Ogmore will be affected by the tax credit cuts. That is a crying shame.

The Government often say that they do not want to learn lessons from the Opposition, so let them learn from Chris Johnes, Oxfam’s director of UK poverty. He said:

“Freezing working tax credits will penalise those who are trying to make a living by working their way out of poverty—this should be among the last places the Government looks to make savings. At a time when the lowest-income households are already struggling to make ends meet, it could push even more working people into poverty.”

That is the Government’s legacy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend has hit the issue right on the head. If we focus narrowly on income, we get a perverse result. Through our early years work, through the support provided by the pupil premium in schools, and through the work that we are doing with universal credit, we have been hugely improving future outcomes for parents and their children who currently languish in poverty.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

As the Secretary of State will know, the Institute for Fiscal Studies predicts that by 2015 there will be 400,000 more children in poverty. Does he agree with us about this, and if so, what is he going to do about it—or does he just accept that it is a necessary evil of the Government’s current policies?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

With respect, we are already doing a lot about it. Of course, people can predict as far ahead as they like, without making big assumptions that nothing ever changes, and they will get the kind of results that they want. The reality for us is that all the work that I described to my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) is vital in changing outcomes for parents and children. Unlike Labour when in government, we do not think that children should be considered separately from their families; we lift families out of poverty and children out of poverty too.

Oral Answers to Questions

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. As we pull together the procedures for the revisions to disability living allowance, we will consider just those sorts of things. We want to ensure that it is proportionate and that regular reviews are considered, so that the allowance can be given to those with the most need without putting too much pressure on those who will never move away from DLA.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

The Minister will know that the Welsh Assembly Government have some of the most progressive policies on poverty alleviation. Will she—or any of the Front-Bench team—tell us what discussions they have had with Welsh Assembly Ministers and whether, should those Welsh Assembly Ministers express any reservations about the net impact of their policies on poverty in constituencies such as mine, they will take those reservations seriously?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I have spoken to the Welsh Secretary on a number of occasions and I have accepted her invitation to go and visit the Assembly—[Interruption.] I have not yet gone, but I have had correspondence with various Ministers. I promise the hon. Gentleman that he will have our eagle eye over the course of the process just as others have.