Department for Education

Huw Merriman Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate on the spending of the Department for Work and Pensions. I thank the hon. Member for High Peak (Ruth George) for leading the debate and for her speech.

I understand the issues that the hon. Lady raises, but, as a Conservative Member, I want to try to make a case for the positives since 2010. In doing so, I would not want it to be thought that I do not have constituents who have been let down by the system. We must always strive to do more and to learn from such issues, but the situation has existed for years under every Government—it has not only existed under this present Government.

I will touch on employment, universal credit and our work to help those with disabilities, sicknesses and impairments, all of which are so important because the Department is responsible for a quarter of all Government spending. A vast £215 billion is spent on benefits and pensions.

Employment is the greatest success of the Government that I have been supporting since 2010, as the unemployment rate has halved since then. The most important thing to me in my role of being an MP is to help people to find work, find hope over despair, find something to feel proud about and find something where they really contribute. It is about taking them from being people who rely on the benefits system when they do not want to do so and giving them a position where they are paying in to help others.

This has been a great success: we now have the highest numbers in employment since records began; we also have an unemployment level at 4%, which is as low as it has been since the early 1970s; youth unemployment has halved; female unemployment is at its lowest rate; and wages are now growing at their joint fastest rate in a decade.

I am particularly proud that our unemployment rate is half that of Eurozone countries. It is important to say that every Labour Government have left office with unemployment higher than when they took office. The unemployment rate rose from 2.1 million in 1997 to 2.5 million in 2010, whereas it has now fallen to 1.36 million. Although there may still be matters that need addressing, this Government have reduced unemployment by 1 million and helped those people to find work and hope, so there is not that much of a stick to beat us with.

Let us look at universal credit, because it is part of our mantra of helping people into work.

[Neil Coyle]

rose—

[Huw Merriman]

Of course I will give way. The hon. Gentleman now has his chance.

[Neil Coyle]

If the hon. Gentleman wants us to provide a stick to beat the Conservatives with, he could try the National Audit Office report that said categorically that there is no evidence to suggest that UC has got anyone into work. So where is his evidence?

[Huw Merriman]

The evidence states that those on UC are more likely to find work and to increase their earnings—that has been found as well. The whole idea of course is that work pays. [Interruption.] The very fact that unemployment has gone down by 1 million suggests that UC is helping people into work. If the hon. Gentleman does not believe that helping people into work is the right thing to do and that we should keep people on benefits, we have indeed failed, but I happen to believe that ours is the right way forward.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

There is something I do not understand here. Not only is there the five-week starting period, but what is now evident is that there is an 11-week starting period. Someone who is moving but staying in accommodation provided by the same social landlord will end up with 11 weeks when they get none of their housing benefit paid, and they are in debt from the very beginning. That has happened to dozens of my constituents. How does that possibly help people to get into work?

[Huw Merriman]

First, we have the two-week run-off with regard to housing benefit. We also have the system of advances. So I do not recognise those figures at all.

[Heidi Allen]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Huw Merriman]

I will not give way, because I am taking quite a lot of time. The reality is that UC is designed to mirror the world of work. In the world of work, 75% of people get paid monthly, and so the benefits system is designed to do that, because everybody on benefits is supposedly able to find work and this system mirrors the world of work. It is the right system to help people.

Another aspect of UC is universal support. It used to be the case that when someone was on benefits they were languishing on benefits, no one cared about them and they did not get the tailored support that UC gives. Now if anyone chooses to go to their jobcentre, as I do regularly, they will find a completely different approach—one where there is compassion and tailor-made support. The work coaches—[Interruption.] It is all well and good the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) chuntering from the Benches, but if she had spent time with her work coaches, seeing the passion that they have in getting their people into work, she would see that they have more effect in doing that than she has by sitting there chuntering away.

My view is that UC works, and 82% of those on UC believe it works, too. It is all well and good for MPs to knock it for political purposes, but if they wanted their constituents to be helped, they would get behind this system, rather than constantly knocking it for political ends.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman says that 82% are satisfied, but does he agree that 18% unsatisfied is still too high?

[Huw Merriman]

Yes, of course, because we should always strive for 100%, as I said right at the start. But when we hear Opposition Members talking, we might think that the figure is at zero—it is not. I spend the time with those delivering the support and those receiving the support, and they are happy with it. Let me compare that with the previous system of tax credits. They were rushed in so fast by the Labour party that we ended up seeing overpayments of £7.3 billion and people pursued through the courts to get that money returned. Where does that leave the party of compassion? A success rate of 82% is high when one considers the challenging circumstances of people on universal credit.

In my remaining two minutes, let me turn back to those on disability support. I find that many of those who have been assessed for PIP and ESA have been let down by the system. I say to my Front-Bench colleagues that we need to continue to look to do more to help them through the assessments. I recognise that they are very much tailored benefits that take account of the cost of a disability. By their very nature, there will be challenges, but universal credit is absolutely a challenge that we should meet.

Again, I come back to the employment figures: we have got many more people with disabilities into work than the Labour party did. Anybody with a disability should be told that they are just as able to find work, and that they have the support of the Conservative party to do so, as those who are not disabled. Failure to do that is complete discrimination. I am really proud of the support we offer. My office is a Disability Confident office: we want to make sure that we give people the exact same opportunities. I am proud of our position with regard to those with disabilities. The fact is that we are now spending an extra £10 billion to assist people, compared with 2010.

When it comes down to it, we are helping people to get into work—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) says we are not, but I have just said that there are an extra million people in employment under this Government compared with under her party’s Government. The statistics do not—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. We do not shout from the Front Bench, nor from any other Bench, but especially not from the Front Bench.

[Huw Merriman]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

It is notable that we can deliver rhetoric, shout and talk about the individual cases, which of course we should, but the statistics show that this Government have got more people into work and are spending more money helping people on benefits. This Government have a record to be proud of, and I am only sorry that more of my colleagues are not willing to stand up and say so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

When it comes to problems with the Department for Work and Pensions and its policies, it is actually quite difficult to know where to start. The people who depend on this Government Department often depend on it absolutely, and it absolutely is not working. It is not working for those on universal credit, assessments for personal independence payments are not fit for purpose, and the benefits freeze has been described by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation as the “biggest policy driver” of poverty in this country.

Perhaps universal credit might work if the Government had not taken £3 billion out of the budget back in 2015—it might then fulfil its original and admirable brief of simplifying the system and helping people get back into work—but they did, and now it is not doing so. They did put half of the money back, but it still is not enough. I do, however, applaud the Secretary of State for her acknowledgment that the problems with universal credit have contributed to the frightening and unacceptable growth in the use of food banks by families in this country. We are also seeing late payments, increased stress for people who are often already suffering from stress or mental health issues, and a growth in homelessness.

Let us put this into context. The DWP will spend £184 billion on benefits and pensions this year. That is a quarter of all public spending. More than half of that, £105 billion, is on pensions, mainly the state pension. Only £22 billion is spent on working-age benefits, and a further £21 billion on housing benefit. As MPs, we have a duty to be careful with our language and to help change the story people in this country hear about the relationship between benefits and poverty.

The DWP should exist to help families break free from poverty, to support people into work who are able to work and to provide security in old age, but that is not what the story of current policies reflects or tells people who are listening out there. Policies such as the five-week waiting time for universal credit reinforce the feeling among claimants that the Department does not actually want to help them, at least not right away. What they see is a delaying tactic—putting off payments for as long as it possibly can. Meanwhile the Government have spent £370 million last year, and advance payments just paper over the cracks.

[Huw Merriman]

rose—

[Christine Jardine]

I beg the hon. Gentleman’s pardon.

In my constituency of Edinburgh West, we are only just learning at first hand about the problems of universal credit, which was rolled out in the constituency at the end of November. We are much better acquainted with the problems caused by PIP assessments and inequities in the changes to the state pension age for women. Every week, I have people come through my door who have been refused PIP, often for the most inexplicable reasons. One constituent, who has had a Motability car for years, was told she did not need it because, if she could drive, she could obviously walk.

[Huw Merriman]

I tried to intervene on the point about universal credit. I do not believe that I voted on universal credit, because it was voted for prior to 2015, when I was first returned to the House. The policy that the hon. Lady is talking about was delivered by a Lib Dem-Conservative coalition, so it is actually her party’s own policy.