Personal Independence Payments (Wales)

Ian C. Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 9th April 2014 Westminster Hall

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

I will be brief, Mr Owen, because I think it is very important that the Minister hears from as many Members as possible. I have a list in front of me of cases involving my constituents who have come to me. I raised the issue initially with the Minister through written questions back in January, and I have raised it in the Chamber, too. This is a massive problem for those individuals. We have heard about a number of individual cases already, and rather than recounting individual cases in Wrexham, I will make a brief point about competence and responsibility.

The personal independence payment system was introduced by this Government—by the Conservatives and their Liberal Democrat allies—and the system has failed. Individuals come to our constituency offices in great personal distress. They are the type of individuals whom we want to see supported by our tax system, and I know that that feeling goes across the House. The reason that we pay our taxes is to support vulnerable people.

The Government chose to change the system and they must take responsibility for that choice. They chose the company that would deliver the system, and they must take responsibility for that choice. The system does not work. We, as Members of Parliament, are representing constituents and making telephone calls to the Department for Work and Pensions and to Capita, and dealing with cases to give people their entitlement. It is not something that they do not deserve—it is their entitlement. We want a system, and they deserve a system, that is satisfactory and that works.

I have respect for the Minister. He has responded to the issues and individual cases that I have raised with him, but the Department has introduced a number of different systems that are causing enormous distress to vulnerable people in our constituencies. It must start taking responsibility, because the people whom we represent deserve to be supported. To date, there is no indication whatever that the situation is going to change. The strength of feeling expressed in this debate is clear and sets out to the Government and to the Minister the depth of anger that there is in our constituency offices.

Will the Minister please take on board the individual cases? We are working on behalf of those constituents and we hope he will, too. However, will he also look at the system? If the system continues to fail, and if it continues to fail those individuals, we will begin to doubt the Government’s motivation in supplying the system. We will begin to ask whether they actually want to support vulnerable people, or whether this is all about saving money in order to ensure that those individuals do not have support, and will wait and wait and eventually go away. They deserve our support, and I hope that the Government will change their approach and give it to them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ian C. Lucas Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Grant]

I think that we are starting to see some action, but I agree that we need to see more. Last August the Football Association introduced reforms which included smaller boards and a new licensing system to deal with matters relating to ownership, finance and supporters. I think it fair to say that a start has been made, but more needs to be done, and if it is not done, we will legislate.

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

2. What recent estimate she has made of the number of businesses that have secured contracts from (a) Broadband Delivery UK and (b) local authorities for broadband infrastructure development in England and Wales.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

Broadband Delivery UK has entered into a framework contract with BT and Fujitsu. There are 40 local authority projects in England with funding from BDUK, and the Welsh Government have one project in Wales. All the contracts have been delivered via BT. I am pleased to say that, under the super-connected cities programme, 70 suppliers have been registered, 300 vouchers have been awarded, and 1,000 more are in the pipeline.

[Ian Lucas]

In a recent report, the Public Accounts Committee said that local authorities were contributing £236 million more than the Department had predicted in its 2011 business case, and that the sole monopoly provider, BT, had contributed £207 million less. As the Minister responsible throughout the programme, does the Under-Secretary of State believe that that is an effective use of public money?

Oral Answers to Questions

Ian C. Lucas Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. What often happens is that evidence is produced on the day of the tribunal that the Department’s officials have never seen before. In some cases, evidence has understandably come forward at that stage when we might not have known anything about it. We are looking closely at that as well as at getting more information from the judges.

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

Since June, I have had five cases brought to my attention at my constituency surgery where applications for PIPs have been made yet not one of them has been paid. The assessments have been carried out, yet DWP employees are telling people being treated for cancer to phone up and chase Capita. Will the Minister do something about it because this system is collapsing?

[Mike Penning]

People suffering from terminal illnesses are being dealt with very quickly in most cases—

[Ian Lucas]

They are not.

[Mike Penning]

Those with terminal illnesses are; cancer is not always terminal. I know this is an emotive subject, but fortunately plenty of people in this country live through their cancer. I will look carefully into what the hon. Gentleman says, but it is not the case that no benefits are getting through. The vast majority are. I see cases at my surgery the same as others do, but the vast majority are getting their benefits. We will, however, work on the quality.

Remploy

Ian C. Lucas Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

My hon. Friend asks a good question: what support do we offer and how do we provide that support? It is tailored to what the person needs, whether it is help with CVs or extra training, or support into the workplace. Therefore, it is dictated not by me but by the person who is coming forward who needs that help.

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

The Minister referred to the Wrexham site. She should claim no credit whatever in respect of Wrexham. It was she and Remploy who made the decision not to allow the business to continue there, and it has now moved to an alternative site. The factory remains closed and empty. When the Government asset-strip the Wrexham site, what will they do with the proceeds from the sale of the land?

[Esther McVey]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that the Wrexham site is being sold with a view to making 10 to 20 jobs available for some of the ex-Remploy staff. That is the reality, which is far from the picture he is painting.

Romanians and Bulgarians (Benefits)

Ian C. Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I can say only that I experienced a moment of deafness—partly because somebody else was wittering on at me—but I have the impression that perhaps something rather tasteless was said. I trust that the person concerned will wash his or her mouth out without delay.

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State clarify whether the Government are considering removing rights to NHS treatment for British citizens, in an effort to restrict access to EU migrants? This has been reported over the past few days, as part of his party’s reaction to events last Thursday.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My view is that that is not the case. It is a matter for the Secretary of State for Health. I recognise that the hon. Gentleman will have to raise it with him, but I am not aware of any such discussions or any such facts being placed in front of me. I would certainly not be keen for that to happen, but as the hon. Gentleman will be aware—as will the right hon. Member for Birkenhead, whose track record on this is arguably unimpeachable—we have a big problem and we have to face it, not because we are scaring people, but because we have to deal with it.

Housing Benefit Entitlement

Ian C. Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

This is the third debate I have attended on this issue in the past two days, which gives an indication of its seriousness. The Minister replied to one of those debates yesterday so he should be increasingly aware of the concern about it. I shall focus on the occupancy provisions as they affect disabled people, because we have heard much from other hon. Members about other issues.

I shall refer to two cases, having been approached by parents of adults with disabilities who will be profoundly and specifically affected by the changes. One, Mrs Rosemary Burslem, asked me to specify the particulars of her son’s case. She is in her 60s and has an adult child, David, who has severe disabilities. He has autism and needs overnight sleep-in staff, as well as one-to-one staff support during the day and two-to-one support when he goes out in the community.

In the view of David’s mother, who has looked after him for many years, it would be inappropriate for him to share a house with anyone with a learning disability because his behaviour is very challenging. He regularly takes food out of the fridge, as well as cutlery and crockery to bedrooms for no apparent reason. He flushes the toilet regularly, and switches electrical items on and off. His behaviour is regularly obsessional, which makes it virtually impossible for him to share accommodation with anyone. David has what Mrs Burslem describes as mega-tantrums. She says they are like the tantrums of the terrible twos, but 30 times worse because he is in his 30s. He is angry, frustrated and feels unwell, and is unable to work or live easily with other people. He then acts for no apparent reason, and all that makes it extremely difficult for him to live with anyone else.

The difficulty with the proposals is that they do not recognise or take account of such circumstances. I know that there are discretionary housing payments, but the reality is that that family is coping now with the uncertainty arising from the proposal.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

Without full details of the case it is difficult to discuss it, but the hon. Gentleman said that the lady is in her 60s. Will he clarify whether she is above or below state pension age?

[Ian Lucas]

She does not live with David, so I am not sure whether that is relevant.

The problem is that the proposal is causing uncertainty to the family now, and there is no certainty about whether discretionary housing payments will be for an extended period or affect them permanently. I will forward full details of the case to the Minister. I do not expect a specific answer now.

I have been contacted about another case of adult parents who share a house with an individual who suffers from spina bifida and hydrocephalus. An additional room in their house is used for the storage of oxygen and other disability aids, and a separate room is used as a living room by the individual concerned, who has specific and profound additional needs. Under these proposals, none of the particular circumstances for those individuals is taken into account, and they are some of the people who we all think—and I am sure the Minister thinks—should have our support, but they have no guarantee that they will continue to receive it. The fact is that this set of proposals is creating enormous worry for people who have huge burdens in caring for people whom they care profoundly about. They have contributed enormously to society by helping to look after those people for very many years, and we are letting them down badly.

I implore the Minister to look at the particular applications of the rules in those cases to ensure that those people can be looked after. When they came to me and said, “Look into these matters,” I could not believe for one moment that the system would not include discretion to cover individual cases such as those. The proposals are ill-conceived and are causing enormous distress up and down the country. The Government, and I am sure the Minister, did not intend to create such situations. He needs to look at the proposals again.

I heard the Minister’s response yesterday, and in it, he referred to the deficit, but the reality is that the Government, at the same time as they are letting those people down, have chosen to give a tax cut to the richest people in the country. That is the type of political choice that we all have to make, and the reality is that the Minister has supported that choice. He needs to get his act together to change his approach and support the people who need support, and not the people who have most.

[Hugh Bayley (in the Chair)]

All Members have been very disciplined in their speeches, so we are almost on time. It seems to me that in a debate of this kind it would be a shame, and wrong, to cut the time for the two remaining Back Benchers, so they will each have five minutes, and the Front Benchers therefore will have nine minutes each.

Housing Benefit and Disabled People

Ian C. Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Caton. I welcome the Minister to her place and offer belated congratulations on her appointment. I wish to raise with her the effect of the changes to housing benefit on people in the social rented sector who are deemed to be under-occupying a property. I thank my constituents John Turner and Matthew Hancock, Karen Armitage of Stafford and Rural Homes, and my colleague Pauline Ingall for bringing this matter to my attention.

From April 2013, size criteria for new and existing working-age housing benefit claimants will be introduced; they will replicate the size criteria that apply to housing benefit claimants in the private rented sector. The Department for Work and Pensions’ impact assessment estimates that out of 660,000 claimants affected by the new rules, some 420,000 are disabled. The impact assessment offers the explanation that

“Disabled claimants are, on average, older than non-disabled claimants. One consequence of this is that disabled claimants are also less likely to live in households with children… Fewer people living in a household means that large accommodation cannot be justified under the size criteria, and Housing Benefit entitlement is reduced.”

In the debate on the Welfare Reform Bill last year, I raised the matter of disabled people sometimes needing more rooms than provided for by the rules. One family in my constituency with disabled adults and children needed separate rooms for the couple and a separate room for one of the children under the age of 10. The then Minister for disabled people, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller), gave a clear answer. She said that

“if a disabled person has the need for an overnight carer, additional rooms can be allocated. Indeed, if there are disabled people in the house who require rooms, there will be clear support there for them to be able to have those rooms.”—[Official Report, 1 February 2012; Vol. 539, c. 937.]

I also raised the question of adaptations, which have sometimes had many thousands of pounds spent on them to enable a disabled person to live in the property. It does not make sense for people to move from such properties to others that will themselves require costly adaptations. I therefore welcomed the fact that of the additional £30 million per annum being added to the discretionary housing payment scheme by the Government from April this year, £25 million is intended to be used

“specifically to assist those disabled claimants who are in properties where a significant adaptation has been made to cater for their individual needs.”

I have contacted the two councils in my constituency to ask them how they intend to allocate the additional funding. Stafford borough council has been working with housing associations to identify tenants affected by the new legislation. It will be concentrating its extra funding, which I estimate to be some £75,000, on disabled people whose property has been adapted and on foster carers; the support will be for 12 months. South Staffordshire district council, which has an additional £64,000 funding, will give short-term support, one to three months, to disabled people with property adaptations. The support is short term, because the council wishes to assess the situation before it commits to the longer term.

Both councils have been proactive in arranging mutual exchanges of properties between those who have spare rooms and those who are overcrowded—they have been doing exactly what the Government wish to encourage. However, both councils face serious shortages of one-bedroom properties for couples or singles, as much of the housing in the area has two bedrooms. That raises two questions for the Minister. First, can councils be sure that they will continue to receive at least the level of additional funding each year for discretionary housing payments that has been granted in 2013-14? Given that much of the funding will be for disabled claimants in adapted properties in which they are likely to live for many years, the need for DHPs will continue. Secondly, is the guidance for the assessment of the number of rooms required by disabled people being set out in the terms that the Minister used to me in the House last year? In addition to the case I mentioned, there are instances where disabled people live on their own or as a couple in a two-bedroom property with little or no storage space, and they tend to use the second room, which is often small, to store equipment that they need—perhaps a wheelchair or a mobility scooter. My understanding of the Minister’s comments in the House last year is that the second room should not be counted as a bedroom.

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a compelling case. Some of the individuals affected are severely disabled and the uncertainty that he has outlined is creating great worry, and not just for them; some parents of disabled people are also concerned about the situation. Is it not imperative that an element of certainty is introduced to the system?

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention and I agree with him. Certainty is vital, which is why I am asking for clarification, and hopefully clarification in the terms used by the then Minister for disabled people in the House of Commons last year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Esther McVey]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, and I will come on to that a little bit later and explain in detail what we are doing. He will also appreciate that I cannot make spending commitments into the next Parliament. None the less, with regard to the discretionary housing payment, the Government are committed to ensuring that the reforms are well implemented. We are working closely with local authorities and the Local Government Association regarding this payment usage. As part of the review of these reforms, we are taking ongoing feedback, and I will be pleased to pass on the points raised here today and any further evidence that emerges as the reforms are rolled out. We will continue to monitor and evaluate the impact of the changes.

I should like to put it on the record that a lot of the negative impacts that people talked about last year, such as an explosion of homelessness and mass migration, have simply not emerged. We all want to ensure that there is a smooth transition and that the change is affordable. Of course we are using common sense. My hon. Friend talks about expensive modifications. We know that we have to take that into account, which is precisely why we have trebled the discretionary fund.

We have also made arguments for exempting certain categories from the social sector size criteria measure. However, we do not believe that blanket exemptions are the most effective and affordable approach to targeting resources, because they do not take into account local knowledge. We have therefore avoided exemptions where possible and favoured the discretionary housing payment, because local decision makers are best placed to make decisions based on individual circumstances.

[Ian Lucas]

The Minister is being generous in giving way. Can she foresee circumstances in which someone who requires an overnight carer is not allowed an extra room within the housing benefit provisions?

[Esther McVey]

That is precisely why we are monitoring and evaluating the scheme, and we will continue to do so for two years to see what extra support might be needed. Of course we are watching and observing what is going on. [Interruption.] I will complete my comments here. However, we are committed to undertaking the independent evaluation of all housing reforms. The first report on the private sector is due to be published later this year, and work on evaluating the social sector changes will be implemented in April, with initial findings being available next year.

I trust that I have answered many of the questions that have been raised today. On other specific matters, I will get back to my hon. Friend. As I have already said, this is an important debate, and it is crucial that we closely monitor the situation. We are considering the most vulnerable people in society, and we have a commitment to them.

Under-occupancy Penalty (Wales)

Ian C. Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Jessica Morden]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. It is true that housing associations, local authorities and the Welsh Assembly will be under stress because they will not be able to mitigate the effects of this policy.

With a chronic shortage of available housing, many tenants appear to feel that there is no alternative but to be forced into arrears or to resort to desperate measures such as payday loans or loan sharks. Families will be forced into financial difficulty and rent arrears. Steve Clarke, chief executive of the Welsh Tenants Federation, estimates that 10% of tenants who will be affected are already indebted to their landlords who are seeking repossession orders. The double whammy of rent arrears and the increases could mean that 4,000 present themselves as homeless. This is against a backdrop of food banks in Newport giving out hundreds more parcels a month and food crime up 26% over the past two years. We are talking about people stealing washing powder.

The Government appear to think that people will find it easy to get extra hours of work or to find an elusive job. They think that lone parents with small children should go out and seek lodgers. In fact, the findings of the hotline of Community Housing Cymru— “Your benefits are changing”—found that 13% of people who rang would consider downsizing and 8% might consider a lodger. However, 79% said that taking on a lodger or moving were not suitable options and that they would apply for discretionary housing payments.

I believe that £7 million has been allocated to Wales, which faces a potential loss of £25 million. That is the Government’s answer to those who cannot move. There is a limited amount of money from the Government towards those payments, but once it has been used, no other payments can be made. I take the point that was made earlier about the fact that there has been no clarification of how the money will be spent. The deserving might miss out if they happen to be in need when the fund has been exhausted. There has been no compelling analysis of the impact that the changes will have on individuals, and the Government’s response of setting a finite budget without knowing whether it will be sufficient is as callous as the bedroom tax itself.

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the most telling aspects of the legislation is the fact that there are no exemptions for severely disabled people? The fund that is available will be quickly used up by, for example, adults with severe learning disabilities who, in all genuineness, cannot take lodgers, because their needs and circumstances are not conducive to sharing accommodation.

[Jessica Morden]

I agree with my hon. Friend’s important point, which we have to bear in mind. Those who have had disabled adaptations to their property would, if forced to move, need another set of disabled adaptations, and it is not clear what will happen with discretionary payments in such circumstances.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Webb]

The right hon. Gentleman says that it is about saving money. I do not apologise for the fact that we have had to save money, because otherwise we would just pile up debts for our children, and that is not progressive, wherever someone is on the political spectrum.

On the hon. Lady’s specific point, yes of course, in theory, successive Governments have tried to work with housing associations and social landlords, and it has not worked, because we have the best part of 1 million empty bedrooms paid for by housing benefit at the same time as we have thousands of people in overcrowded accommodation. The challenge is therefore to use the need to save money to create fairness between private and social tenants and to create fairness between people who are living in overcrowded accommodation and those who have spare bedrooms.

[Ian Lucas]

Will the Minister give way?

[Steve Webb]

No, I want to respond to the hon. Lady. She said that these are the lifetime homes of some people, and I entirely accept that. That is why we have exempted pensioners as a group. A set of pensioners have spare rooms, living in the home that they have occupied all their lives, and we are not touching them for the reasons she gave.

Those who are below pension age can clearly respond in a range of ways. It will be different for every person. For example, we are often told that some people in social housing or on housing benefit are in work, and the average £12 shortfall in Wales is the equivalent of two hours at the minimum wage, so for some people, as the hon. Lady said, it will be a matter of working a few extra hours. I accept that that is not an option for everyone, but it is for some. Others might have the opportunity to do a part-time job, if they are not currently. She said that some would not be able to take in a lodger or tenant, but some can. I had a constituent ring me up to say, “I am in a three-bedroom house, I live on my own and I have just had one of these letters. What shall I do?” We started talking and she said, “To be honest, my brother and sister-in-law would quite like to move in. Can we do that?” Yes, they can, and that would be using the house to much better effect. That will not be right for everyone, but there will be a range of responses. The system is geared so that if people have a boarder or sub-tenant—most social landlords should allow a sub-tenant, in an organised way—they get to keep at least the first £20 a week of the income. Those are all options, which will not work for everyone, but there is a range of them.

The hon. Lady mentioned Bron Afon and Duncan Forbes. I have looked at some of the case studies. One of them is just wrong. In the case she mentioned of the ex-serviceman with a teenager who might go off to university, provided she is not away for more than 13 weeks at a time, she can have the bedroom. That means that social landlords have to be good at communicating with their tenants. I have seen good examples, although I have also seen some bad ones. The other examples may well be true but I saw that case and it jumped out at me, and I thought, “That is not right”, although there is a description of how distressed the man was. Someone has a duty to know the rules—we have to communicate them effectively, but so do the social landlords. I have seen letters sent out by social landlords that are excellent, that explain the rules and what discretionary housing payments are, but I have seen others that do not even mention discretionary housing payments. We have to ensure that social landlords up their game.

I must respond to several points on discretionary housing payments, which are crucial. The right hon. Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy) cited a figure of £50,000, £54,000 or something. The figure for that local authority for the year we are talking about, when the policy comes in, is not £50,000 but £193,000. That is when the policy comes in. Clearly, the point of discretionary housing payments is not to make up everyone’s shortfall, or we would not make any money out of the policy—we would not be saving any money—but it is for the hardest cases.

There is an issue to do with whether we try to prescribe in primary or secondary legislation the exact categories of people whom we want to help, of which one is people with major disabled adaptations. We could have done that, but the second that is done and we try to define a substantial adaptation, we get someone whom we did not think of just the wrong side of the line and someone whom we did not need to include on the right side of the line. For example, if someone has had stairlifts, extra rooms, widened doors and all the rest, it is pretty obvious, or if someone has had a handgrip, it is pretty obvious, but what about all those in the middle? Rather than us in Whitehall trying to define for every local authority, for every sort of adaptation, that this is in or this is out, we have trusted local authorities.

We have given the money specifically for people who have had disabled adaptations or, to give another example, for foster carers; for some of the other housing benefit changes as well, we have given the councils a pot of money and said, “You know your local people. You can meet people case by case.” Thus, a lone or separated parent who has the kids regularly and needs that room, and nothing else can be done, could go to the local authority for DHP. We were not going to try to prescribe for DHP, however; we were not going to legislate for such things as whether so many nights qualify or whether there are certain arrangements for the kids. The idea is that the local authority treats people as individual human beings and meets their individual needs. The pot is not unlimited—

[Ian Lucas]

Will the Minister give way?

[Steve Webb]

I really want to respond to the hon. Member for Newport East, because I have other things to say about the points she made.

We tried not to prescribe in a rigid, central, one-size-fits-all way, but to make substantial extra money available so that people could respond individually.

Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill

Ian C. Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Byrne]

I am going to make a tiny bit of progress once I have given way to my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas).

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. What Government Members do not seem to understand is that the whole rationale for this Bill is the need to address their failure to deliver on the economic promises they made when they first came into government. The Bill is necessary only because the Government have failed economically.

[Mr Byrne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When the Chancellor came to the House back in December, he was forced to admit that somehow, for some reason, growth had eluded him once again—it had got away. He brought forward a package of measures that was so focused on generating jobs that the Office for Budget Responsibility looked at it and revised the claimant count for the forecast period, not down but up by 300,000. The OBR also spelled out how much this was going to cost us: it is an eye-watering figure. The heroic efforts of the Chancellor and the Secretary of State to get the claimant count down over the next few years is costing us £6 billion in higher welfare bills, and today’s Bill shows us exactly who is going to pick up the tab.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Sajid Javid)]

Let me start with some comments on tone. The Government have been wrongly accused by many on the Opposition Benches of using inflammatory language on this most important issue, but let me refer to some of the inflammatory language that has been used:

“Let’s face the tough truth—that many people on the doorstep at the last election felt that too often we were for shirkers not workers.”

Those are not the words of any Government Member, but those of the shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, so let us hear no more about tone from Opposition Members.

I thank all 36 hon. Members who have made contributions to the debate. They have shown how passionate they are about this issue, not least my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State Work and Pensions, who has devoted nearly a decade of his career to this important matter. While he was chairing the Centre for Social Justice and looking for ways to lift the poorest out of poverty, the Opposition spokesperson, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne), was at the Treasury, dishing out money like there was no tomorrow. I therefore find it quite bizarre that he, the man who so eloquently summed up the economic legacy in another quote of his—

“I’m afraid to tell you there’s no money left”—

has told us from the Opposition Dispatch Box how to spend even more. He has told us to commit more money to public spending—money he knows we do not have.

Spending money is something that the right hon. Gentleman and the Opposition have an excellent record on. In the decade before the financial crisis and despite a growing economy, welfare spending increased by 20% and has continued to rise from 11% of gross domestic product in 2008 to more than 13% by 2012.

[Ian Lucas]

Will the Minister give way?

[Sajid Javid]

I will give way just this once.

[Ian Lucas]

Will the Minister confirm that the Bill has been introduced because of the Government’s failure to deliver on the economic pledges they made in 2010?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman should ask that question of the shadow Secretary of State. There is no money left! Let me put it simply: welfare spending costs the UK—

Remploy

Ian C. Lucas Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

The right hon. Gentleman is right that 19 disabled people were employed at the factory, but in his constituency there are 16,700 people with disabilities, so we have to see what we are doing for all those people. I hope that he can take some comfort from the fact that last year alone Remploy Employment Services found jobs for 527 people with similar disabilities. Therefore, we have faith that we can get jobs for those 19 people.

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

The closure of these Remploy factories—I believe that they will inevitably close, just as with the closures that took place over the summer—will lead to a payment to the Minister’s Department of a capital receipt on the sale of the premises. Will she confirm that that capital receipt, which is over and above the commitment of £320 million that she mentioned, will be used for the benefit of disabled people?

[Esther McVey]

I will certainly look into whether the capital receipt can be ploughed into future work and support for disabled people. Equally, I would like the hon. Gentleman to take into account the fact that some of these sales are not freehold but leasehold, so the figures might not be as high as he expects.