Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Tristram Hunt

Monday 5th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

We have a whole series of measures. We recently introduced a new fraud and error strategy, which is already having some success. Future fraud will be reduced now, and agreed by the Office for Budget Responsibility in a sense, but we will reduce future fraud right now by £237 million. The plan and target is for us to reduce it by about £1.4 billion by March 2015. These are major measures over and above what we were left by the Opposition, who seemed quite content to watch fraud and error spiral out of control.

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

T3. As you know, Mr Speaker, the Wedgwood museum in Stoke-on-Trent is one of the greatest museums in the world and is facing the liquidation of its collection due to faulty pension legislation. The problem lies with the 2008 occupational pension schemes regulation and the last man standing principle, which leaves a solvent employer liable for the whole of the deficit in a multi-employer scheme. That was never meant to apply to charitable collections. Will the Minister review that legislation before we sacrifice more of our national heritage to the lawyers?

Welfare Reform

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Tristram Hunt

Monday 11th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am glad that my hon. Friend sees it like that, because that is exactly how I see it. Of course, the devil will be in the detail, but we want a process that is easy to understand for those who are trying to get back to work, so that they do not need a maths degree to figure out exactly how much money they will retain if they do seven, eight, nine, 15 or 20 hours’ work a week. We want it to be easy for them to understand that there is an incentive for every hour that they work, and for those in jobcentres to figure it out, so that they can give proper advice. We want incentives, not disincentives, to go back to work.

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State give us some assurance about the future of the independent living fund? The Government trickled out the information that it was one of the quangos to be abolished. That report has caused my constituent, Mrs Seckerson, and her husband and carer, Barry Seckerson, real concern because if they lose that fund, her chance of living a meaningful life will be severely inhibited. Rather than leaving them fearful of the future, can the Secretary of State give them some sense of security today?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The ILF, which we inherited, had been underfunded and was consequently overspent—literally on the day we walked through the door of government. The hon. Gentleman might therefore want to take up the reasons for such bad mismanagement with his Front-Bench colleagues. However, we want to ensure that we deal with people in those circumstances fairly and reasonably. We are reviewing the whole process now and, as and when we complete the review, I shall ensure that the hon. Gentleman hears the details of it.