Oral Answers to Questions

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

15. What steps he is taking to tackle benefit fraud in areas where its prevalence is high.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

I remind my hon. Friends of our inheritance from the previous Government: fraud and error in the benefit system were at £3.1 billion and progress had plateaued since 2005. The joint strategy with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs started in 2010 and included mobile regional taskforces to look at different areas. We are targeting claimants in high fraud areas with visits, phone calls and letters. One pilot has been completed in Birmingham and we have two more in Cardiff and Croydon. We will carry out evaluation once all three are completed. So far, since October, from case cleansing alone we have saved more than £100 million.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I thank my right hon. Friend. Will he share with the House how many benefit fraudsters were actually prosecuted last year?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

We prosecuted almost 10,000 benefit fraudsters in 2010-11, up from 8,200 the year before. Of those, 86% were successfully convicted—[Interruption.] I would have thought that the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) would like to keep quiet, because he has made one mistake already and is bound to put his foot in it again. We will push for the strongest possible sentences. In all cases, benefit fraudsters are required to pay back the money they have stolen.

[Stephen Mosley]

Benefit fraud is not just stealing from the taxpayer; it also leads to less money being available to those who are most in need. One measure that should deter benefit cheats is the one, two and three strikes rules. How successful does my right hon. Friend think that those rules will be in reducing benefit fraud?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

When the Welfare Reform Bill has passed through the other place, that process will begin and I think it will be very successful. Another important thing that we will do is bring together all the disparate benefit groups chasing fraud so that we have a much more cohesive strategy. Under the previous Government data were collected so shoddily that it is difficult to get to the absolute truth about the figures, so finally and importantly, we intend to change that.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to tackle benefit fraud, and he mentioned the scheme in Cardiff. Is he being equally assiduous in tackling a lack of benefit take-up among people who should be entitled to benefits?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

That is exactly what universal credit will help to change. The most important point is that its automatic nature will mean far fewer cases of people not receiving in the first place what they are entitled to. One good example is child care: many women, in particular, who are responsible for looking after children do not get the child care that they need, and under the universal credit that should change.

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

Universal credit is supposed to be much simpler than the current system. Why, according to the Government’s own impact assessment, will 380,000 people receive penalties for mistakes on their application and when will negligence be defined?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The point about universal credit is that it gets rid of quite a lot of the complexity in the system. That complexity has led to so many mistakes by individuals claiming and by the officials who are meant to be settling those claims. The hon. Lady, and her party, should welcome the arrival of universal credit at the earliest opportunity.

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

2. What support is available through Jobcentre Plus for people who wish to start their own business.

--- Later in debate ---

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

11. If he will amend his proposed welfare reforms to minimise the risk of children entering poverty.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

The overhaul of the benefits system through the Welfare Reform Bill will hugely improve the incentives to work. Universal credit will bring in an improvement for children, in that 350,000 children will be lifted out of relative poverty. As the hon. Lady may be aware, we have also made available an extra £300 million for the poorest people who are caring for children.

[Debbie Abrahams]

The Children’s Society’s analysis of the impact of the welfare reforms says that they will push more children into severe poverty and homelessness. Currently, one in four children in my constituency is in severe poverty. Eighteen bishops have called for the Secretary of State to reconsider his position on the reforms—will he listen to them?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I think the hon. Lady is referring to the cap, but I do not agree with her. The cap, which I understand Labour Front Benchers support, is rational and reasonable in that nobody who is out of work should be earning more than average earnings—that is, about £26,000 net. She may deal with constituents who have to travel perhaps an hour into work in the morning and an hour back, who work very hard and who look at those who are out of work and on benefits and find it difficult to accept that they are unable to earn as much.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

With child poverty targets repeatedly missed pre-2010, what role does the Government’s support for child care and the extension of early years provision play in helping families and keeping children out of poverty?

[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.

[Jessica Lee (Erewash) (Con)]

A genuine challenge for us is to move into work those young unemployed people who have not had the role model of a parent getting up and going out to work in the morning. Can my right hon. Friend assure us that we are tackling this cycle of dependency to assist children and young people for the future?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I refer my hon. Friend to the answer given earlier by my right hon. Friend the Minister of State. The Work programme is a huge change for people who have been out of work for a long time. If we couple that with work experience and the opportunities for apprenticeships, we can see that this is a big step forward. Together with the introduction of universal credit, which will ensure that someone is always better off in work than out of work, the whole benefit and welfare system should be changed positively to support those sorts of people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

17. What steps his Department is taking to ensure the new system of universal credit accommodates changes in personal circumstances.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

The design of universal credit will largely be about improving people’s personal circumstances. It will take account of such changes. That is the point of using the real-time information system. Essentially, such information will flow automatically, thus stopping what happens at present. All too often, there is too much of a delay in changing people’s circumstances, which can damage their outcomes, as was the case for one of my hon. Friend’s constituents. That should be brought to an end. At last, we will have a system that reflects people’s needs.

[Mark Pawsey]

The constituent to whom the Secretary of State refers, whose domestic circumstances changed, immediately notified Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, but she tells me that it took seven weeks to reassess her claim for working tax credit and child tax credit. During that period, payments were suspended and my constituent was placed in some hardship. Can the Secretary of State reassure the House that under the new system of universal benefit, such delays will not occur?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

May I say on behalf of the Government that such a delay is unacceptable? My hon. Friend knows that I have already written to him about that. The current system, much improved though it is, still leads to great difficulty because of the complexity of the benefit system that we have inherited. Universal credit will change that and at last give constituents such as his a chance to take a job, change their circumstances and get the money they should have got in the first place.

[Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

Women’s working lives often have much variation in them, as they sometimes take a few years off to have children. What assessment has my right hon. Friend made of the benefits of universal credit in taking account of such changes, specifically for women?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Universal credit is now widely perceived as being very beneficial to women, particularly to lone parents who struggle a lot. They are in and out of work, and often their hours change. That will be reflected almost immediately in universal credit. I know that many who come out of work temporarily lose some of their housing benefit because it takes so long to reorganise it, and thus are worse off. That should all be brought to an end by universal credit, and it will also improve the support for child care.

[John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)]

18. How much his Department paid in winter fuel allowance in (a) Glasgow North West constituency and (b) Scotland in 2010; and how much it will pay in 2011.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

I am pleased to announce today the publication of the Löfstedt report on health and safety legislation. We have accepted its findings, including the recommendation to move about 1 million self-employed people out of health and safety regulation altogether where their work activity poses no potential risk or harm to others. I believe that the report is good for everybody and will help us put some much-needed common sense back into health and safety.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

At a recent meeting of the Basildon and Thurrock branch of Epilepsy Action, concerns were expressed that the work capability assessment does not fully take account of the debilitating effect that a condition such as epilepsy can have on a person’s ability to work. Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that those conducting the work capability assessment do understand the complexities and intermittent nature of neurological conditions such as epilepsy, and that those are taken into account when making the assessment?

[Mr Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

With the OECD forecasting that unemployment is set to spiral to more than 9% in the next year or two, it is clear that the squeeze on working families will only get tighter and tighter. Can the Secretary of State remind the House how much extra it is budgeted will come off tax credits over the next year?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman that he needs to wait until the autumn statement to have all those figures set in place—if such a thing does exist.

[Mr Byrne]

I am happy to write to the Secretary of State with his own figures. Budgets laid out by the Chancellor project that more than £3 billion will come off tax credits and child benefit for working people, starting from next April. That squeeze is already serious, and that is why it is unacceptable to propose a further squeeze on tax credits in order to pay for the Secretary of State’s failure to get young people back to work.

On Friday, the Deputy Prime Minister was asked where the money for the new youth contract would come from. He said:

“Well the money clearly comes from the Government”.

He is full of insight. Will the Secretary of State confirm that he has been rolled over by the Deputy Prime Minister and that tax credits will be squeezed to pay for his failure to get young people back to work?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Just in case the right hon. Gentleman has missed the point, I remind him that decisions about tax credits are a matter for the Chancellor. I am surprised that he does not know that, because he was once in the Treasury himself. That reminds me that he is the individual who left a letter saying that there was no money left. Where does he think we were going to get the money from to get our successful programmes under way? The answer is that we have made a great start through the work experience programme, the Work programme and the changes to universal credit. We as a Government are doing more to get people back to work than anything his Government did when they were in power.

[Chris Kelly (Dudley South) (Con)]

T2. What assessment has the Minister made of the potential effect on UK defined benefit pension schemes of the European Union proposal to review the institutions for occupational retirement directive and align it with the solvency II directive? Is not that just a further EU assault on the hard-pressed UK occupational pension sector, and the last thing we need? Will the Minister stand firm against that?

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

T4. Has the Minister revised his previous estimate that, by 2012, 25,000 single parents will be in work when their income support ends when their youngest child is five years old? Does he not accept that unemployment in my area, Hull, is at a record high, thanks to his Government’s policies?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am always astonished by the Opposition’s defeatist idea that trying to get single parents back into work to support their children is somehow a bad thing. The reality is that the hon. Gentleman’s Government left this country bust, and without any money to do any of the things that he wants to do. They keep spending the same money again and again in their proposals. It is time that they grew up and got on with the real opposition that we expect.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

T3. The Secretary of State will be aware that it is still possible to study David Beckham, Harry Potter and surfing as part of degree courses in the UK. Following the Government announcement about the youth contract, can he assure me that he is in touch with the Department for Education to ensure that young people are equipped to deal with jobs in the real world?

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

T6. Does my right hon. Friend agree that many people of both sexes, in Gloucester and elsewhere, who are currently without a pension will benefit considerably from the on-time and on-budget auto-enrolment that will arrive next summer? Does he also agree that many more people, especially women, would benefit from the current proposal under consideration for a single-tier state pension?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I absolutely agree. Auto-enrolment is not a negative; it is a positive. The fact that the Government are to plough ahead with it, that there will be no exemptions and that all companies will be brought under its scheme is critically important. I support the proposals of the pensions Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb). Furthermore, the reason that we were left in such a parlous position, with too many people owing money, was that not enough people in Britain had saved; now is the time to start changing that.

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

T7. Last week, the Office for National Statistics revealed that the real value of average median wages has declined by 3.5% this year, with an even bigger fall for the lowest paid. Does the Secretary of State recognise the impact that the child tax credit has in improving the living standards of the low paid, and would it simply not be an attack on the poor to refuse to uprate the child tax credit in line with inflation next April?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I need to remind the hon. Gentleman that whatever our opinions on this, it is a matter for the Chancellor and not the Department for Work and Pensions.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

T8. Over the past 12 months, unemployment in my constituency has fallen by 13%. According to the headline on the front page of the Rugby Advertiser, that is the largest fall in the country. In contrast to the picture painted by the Opposition, there are some good news stories. Does the Minister agree that in dealing with unemployment, this Government are taking the right steps?

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

A constituent of mine, Abigail McGhee, was engaged to, and living with, the father of her two young children when he sadly died. Her application for widowed parent’s allowance was declined on that basis. Will the Minister reconsider the application of this benefit for people who find themselves in that sad position?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Yes, I will, and if the hon. Gentleman would like to send me the details of that case, I will pay particular attention to it.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

May I thank my right hon. Friend for his Department’s swift adoption of the Löfstedt review’s recommendations today? Does he agree that when introduced they will have the capacity not only to reduce the burden of red tape on organisations, but to improve their understanding of health and safety and therefore its effectiveness?

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

Since last May, an extra 155,000 working households have been forced on to local housing allowance—an increase of 42% on the previous year. Is that because rents have risen or because wages have fallen?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

As the hon. Lady knows, when we entered office we inherited a housing benefits system in a mess and local housing allowance was already spiralling —it has approximately doubled in the last 10 years—so she should look at what happened before as much as at what happens now.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that new policy announcements from his Department should be made to Parliament first?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The answer to that question is yes.

[Mr Speaker]

I am glad that I asked for the question to be put again—and I am glad I heard the answer. Very satisfying.