Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Debbie Abrahams

Monday 1st February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

May I write to the hon. Gentleman about that? We are considering that issue but have not quite made a decision, so I will provide a full answer in due course.

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

My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) is right. Poverty affects people’s life chances, and disabled people are twice as likely to be living in poverty as the non-disabled population. We know from the Government’s own figures that disabled people on incapacity benefit or the employment and support allowance are between two and six times more likely to die than the population as a whole. As my hon. Friend said, the recent consultation to review eligibility for the personal independence payment, just two years after it was introduced, will mean even more cuts for disabled people. That comes on top of the proposed cuts to ESA, the work-related activity group, and the £23.8 billion that has been taken from disabled people as part of the Welfare Reform Act 2012. With 5.1 million disabled people living in poverty, what is the Government’s estimate of how many more disabled people will be living in poverty as a result of those measures?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Even though we have created a new benefit—I believe that PIP is a better benefit than the DLA, and it is far better for those with mental health problems, as many charities and support groups have admitted—we must constantly keep it under review to ensure that the money allocated for it goes to those who need it most. As the hon. Lady knows, a recent court case widened the whole element of aids and adaptations, which would mean that fewer people got the kind of money that they needed. We believe that the personal independence payment is far better, and that it will deliver exactly what we expect to those who need it most. Our job is to support those who need it. The Government that the hon. Lady was part of did absolutely nothing to sort out the mess of the disability living allowance in the whole time they were in power.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Debbie Abrahams

Monday 7th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The hon. Gentleman is right that a huge amount of work is being done and there is still even more that can be done, but the No. 1 priority for Northern Ireland right now is for people to sit down, behave rationally and sort this out so that we can get the money to Northern Ireland and support the sort of people he talks about, rather than posturing and playing games.

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

The Government’s own data show that people in the work-related activity group are twice as likely to die than those in the general population. How can the Secretary of State justify £30-a-week cuts for people in that category?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The hon. Lady put out a series of blogs on the mortality stats last week that were fundamentally wrong. Her use of figures is therefore quite often incorrect. I simply say to her—[Interruption.] She has had an offer to meet the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), time and again, but she just wants to sit in the bitter corner screaming abuse.

Child Poverty

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Debbie Abrahams

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I agree. Apart from the two key areas that we are going to study very hard and put forward proposals on—the educational attainment and worklessness measures—we will have a duty to report on the pathways to poverty that I spoke about. Those will be the guiders that allow us to drive forward the change that is necessary, often in the very early years, in families suffering deprivation.

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

Is not this statement merely a justification for next week’s cuts to tax credits for the working poor? Is it not also about avoiding the fact that the Government have absolutely no hope in hell of achieving their Child Poverty Act targets? The fact is that low income is the cause of child poverty, so what is the Secretary of State going to do to address that, because this Government have absolutely failed to make work pay?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I agree that low earnings are part of the problem, but that is exactly what we are trying to address in raising the thresholds and planning to raise them again to over £12,600. We have taken millions of people out of paying tax. We also targeted this by raising the minimum wage, which will rise again to £6.70. I have made it very clear that I personally want the minimum wage to rise even further. This Government are determined, through the mechanisms and interventions that I am talking about, to raise incomes and change life chances at the very earliest stage.

Child Poverty

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Debbie Abrahams

Thursday 25th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

That is an interesting question. I agree that it is important to get beyond this sterile debate. I want to bring to the House what I consider to be the right measures, and then I will be happy to discuss options. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) has come up with an idea, and I am happy to discuss that as well.

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

I have to say I found the Secretary of State’s tone absolutely breathtaking. Given that two thirds of children living in poverty are from working families, will he answer the question—this is the sixth time of asking—what assessment have his Government undertaken of the proposed cuts in tax credits and how they will affect child poverty levels?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

We have got more people back into work and more people progressing through work, and more people are better off. They are better off in work than they are out of work—a fact that the hon. Lady seems to miss completely. The tax changes and the reductions in tax on take-home pay mean that people are actually better off. The answer to her question is simple: we will continue to support people who need that support through getting into work and beyond. That is the purpose of universal credit, she should stand assured.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Debbie Abrahams

Monday 22nd June 2015 Commons Chamber

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

T7. My hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Marie Rimmer) is right. Given that on 5 June the High Court found the Department’s actions—this time on PIP delays—unlawful, does the Secretary of State think that he and his Department are above the law? Why does he refuse to publish the details of the number of people who have died within six weeks of their claims for incapacity benefit and employment and support allowance, including those who have been found fit for work?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

As I said to the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Marie Rimmer), I find it unbelievable that she, the hon. Lady and others have spent all their time trying to make allegations about people going about their work. [Interruption.] She knows very well that the Department does not collate numbers on people in that circumstance. It deals with individual cases where things have gone right or gone wrong and reviews them. It is a crying shame that Labour Members want to go out every day scaring and frightening people. It is no wonder they lost the election.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Debbie Abrahams

Monday 3rd November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

We have already taken action. We have closed many of the loopholes and tightened things up. Come Monday next week, nobody will be able to claim out-of-work benefit for more than three months, and after that people will have to leave the country. They will not get housing benefit, they have to be able to speak English and they have to show that they are resident here. And that is only the beginning.

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

A research group from Oxford university has analysed the data from the Government’s new sanctions regime. It has identified that 4.5 million people on jobseeker’s allowance have been sanctioned, including young people. One in four of those who were sanctioned left JSA. More than half of those who left did so for reasons other than employment. In the light of that, will the Secretary of State apologise for his claim that his policies are getting people into work, when they clearly are not?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

As far as I am concerned, jobcentres apply sanctions only as a last resort. With the new actions that we have taken to get mandatory reconsideration, the number of appeals has dropped. The truth is that when the hon. Lady’s party was in government, it accepted the need for sanctions when people did not do what they were expected to do. Only in opposition does it claim that it is opposed to sanctions. It would not implement that policy if it was in government.

Universal Credit

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Debbie Abrahams

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

What my hon. Friend says is exactly the point I have been making, but which Opposition Members just do not understand. There were too many disasters under their watch; we do not intend to repeat them. We are doing the implementation exactly as the PAC and the NAO recommended.

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

Once again, I am absolutely staggered at the Secretary of State’s hubris; there are more cover-ups, and everybody else is to blame apart from the Secretary of State. This has been an absolutely unmitigated disaster. UC is dead in the water, and he should go.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

That is pretty much what the hon. Lady says whenever she stands up on any question to do with welfare. The reality is that she is opposed to absolutely everything that we have done. If it was left to her and some of her colleagues on the Select Committee, they would repeal everything we have done, and welfare would be in the sort of chaos that Labour Members left us when they left Government.

DWP: Performance

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Debbie Abrahams

Monday 30th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

This is what is so interesting. Over the weekend, the lid was lifted on what is really going on. [Interruption.] They do not like this, because it is the truth. The hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham said of the Opposition employment policy announced the other day:

“We managed in the political world to condense it into one story about a punitive hit on 18 to 21-year-olds around their benefits. That takes some doing, you know, a report with depth is collapsed into one instrumentalised policy thing which was fairly cynical and punitive.”

He was making the point, I think, that the Opposition are failing to say what they really want to do. The hon. Lady let the cat out of the bag when she made it clear that the Opposition want to spend more on welfare and to reverse our changes to the welfare system.

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

Perhaps we could get back on track and scrutinise the performance of the Department for Work and Pensions. Will the Secretary of State confirm when he anticipates actually delivering 1 million people on universal credit? Will it be by 2191? At the current rate, it will be.

Universal Credit

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Debbie Abrahams

Tuesday 10th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I can tell my hon. Friend that all the recommendations have already been implemented. They were drawn from our own reports internally—both the red team report that I instigated and the PricewaterhouseCoopers report—and all these changes have been made. This roll-out programme bears complete authority on the basis of that.

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

Yesterday, the Secretary of State claimed that 700,000 people would now not be expected to join universal credit by 2017 because he was having a rethink and wanted to introduce things more slowly for vulnerable claimants. However, on 18 November—three weeks ago—he said to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg):

“As I said to the hon. Lady when I appeared in front of her Committee in July, we have been very clear that we would roll out universal credit on the plan and programme already set out.”—[Official Report, 18 November 2013; Vol. 570, c. 946.]

Which is it?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The funny thing about the Opposition is that they do not know what they want. They say that they support universal credit—[Interruption.]

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Debbie Abrahams

Monday 18th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I shall take my hon. Friend’s plaudits and congratulations in the spirit in which they were meant. The benefit cap is intended to be fair to those who pay tax to support people who are out of work by ensuring that people cannot earn more through being out of work than they can through being in work. Of course we keep the whole issue under review, but the cap is working very well at its present level.

How interesting it is that not one Opposition Member wants to talk about issues such as getting people back to work and being fair to the taxpayer. The only policy that the Opposition have come up with so far is reversal of the spare room subsidy. That is a pathetic indictment of the lack of welfare policies in the “welfare party”.

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

I welcome today’s figures showing a reduction in unemployment, but what are the implications for the targets relating to inappropriate sanctions on jobseeker’s allowance claimants? This is a real issue, and it needs to be addressed. It is distorting the JSA figures.

Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Debbie Abrahams

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I said that I would make a little progress and then give way. I wish to make one point, which is that £4 billion has had to be written off as a direct result of this inability to get the money back, with a further £4 billion likely to be written off directly as a result of Labour’s massive failure to control that budget.

The second part of our approach is important and it relates to the issue of fairness, which my hon. Friend the Minister of State addressed. We do not do these things lightly, but we do want to make sure that those paying the tax bill for those receiving it in welfare recognise that their taxes are well spent; we want to ensure that those in work paying their taxes do not see the rises for those on welfare outstripping their own. We have already discussed the increases, so this is fundamentally an issue of fairness.

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

rose—

[Mr Byrne]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I will not give way. Progress on tackling child poverty stalled, and the previous Government missed their 2010 target by some 600,000 children.

[Debbie Abrahams]

rose—

[Mr Duncan Smith]

No, I will not give way yet. From 2004 until the last election the previous Government spent £171 billion trying to hit their target, and that was where the problem came from. They wrecked what might have been a good process because they turned it into a target-chasing process, which never succeeded finally.

[Debbie Abrahams]

Some 200,000 children will be pushed into poverty as a result of this uprating measure, according to the assessments, so how can the Government claim to have any commitment to reducing child poverty?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Let me put the figures in the round within the period of spending review. My hon. Friend the Minister of State made a very good point, with which I agree and which I have made in the past—we do not trumpet our progress because we think the process of setting a target around 60% of the median income line was a recipe for nightmare problems and excess spending. We do not claim that that is the right way to measure the problem. The hon. Lady will have noticed that in answer to a parliamentary question last week, we said that we will go into full public consultation about a better way to measure real child poverty that the coalition Government will set and measure ourselves against—[Interruption.] Income will be part of it, but not the dominant part that her Government made it. If she and her party were honest—when I made this point on Second Reading, I noticed one of her Front Benchers nodding his head—they would admit that when they worked out the arbitrary target in 1997-98, they thought that they would not be in power that long and that they could achieve the targets along the way. What they ended up in doing was create a nightmare for themselves.

Some £170 billion were spent on tax credits but targets to halve child poverty by 2010 were missed by 600,000. Easier successes were found and then later the rate fell from 26% to 23%. It dropped further between 2002 and 2005 but that coincided with a 75% increase in spending on tax credits from £13.2 billion to £22.9 billion. Throughout that period, the amount of severe child poverty was absolutely static.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Debbie Abrahams

Monday 28th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[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?