Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Mary Glindon

Monday 31st March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Yes, there is huge support in other countries. Recently, Mrs Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, said:

“There is a need for clarity: who is entitled to claim social security in Germany, and under what conditions.”

The Deputy Prime Minister of the Netherlands, among others, has said exactly the same. I am in discussions with many of my counterparts across Europe to make sure that we, as individual independent nations within the EU, will be able to impose the conditions we require to stop migrants coming here just to get better benefits than they would in their own country.

[Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

With thousands of PIP claimants waiting six months or more for even their medicals before they get anywhere near any money, will the Minister say exactly what penalties he is imposing on Atos and Capita for failing so abysmally?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Mary Glindon

Monday 10th December 2012 Commons Chamber

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

In June, the Prime Minister instigated a debate about the merits and risks of taxpayers continuing to meet the £2 billion bill that automatic entitlement to housing benefit for people aged under 25 brings. More work is required, and that discussion and debate is still going on.

[Mrs Glindon]

Last year, 10,000 young people became homeless because, through no fault of their own, they could no longer live with their parents. Will the Secretary of State give the House a categorical assurance that there will be no further plans in this Parliament to take away young people’s housing benefit?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I repeat what I said in my first answer: there is a discussion and debate. The policy debates are likely to go ahead, but I have no plans as yet to implement any policy—there are further discussions to be had.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Mary Glindon

Monday 5th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I absolutely agree. It is important to extend the net as widely as possible. My hon. Friend is a huge campaigner for public sector organisations and he is right about the Shaw Trust, which I have visited. It is a phenomenal organisation. We will use the trust and every other organisation we can. In fact we set up desks in jobcentres, which were manned by the Prince's Trust on behalf of all other charities, so that we could extend that net to enable anyone who needed it to get support, not just from the Government but from other organisations.

[Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

The unemployed former Remploy workers in my constituency have seen little or no help from the DWP or Remploy since they lost their jobs. What will the Secretary of State do about that?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am very happy to take any particulars from the hon. Lady and to hear more detail from her, but the really successful part of Remploy is the part of the organisation that works to get people back to work. It has had a very successful record. We have put extra money into that organisation. We have made more money and more support available to try to get people who were working in the factories at Remploy back to work. However, I must say that during the period that the Government she supported were in office, next to no support was given to people who left Remploy when it closed up to 29 factories.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Mary Glindon

Monday 28th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

By insisting that widows’ pensions should be treated as unearned income under the universal credit, widows will lose a large slice of their pension. How can the Secretary of State justify that?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The hon. Lady knows that we are looking at all these matters. I am happy to discuss that matter with her if she wants to talk to me.