Department for Work and Pensions

James Wild Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[David Linden]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for putting that point on the record. He was my predecessor on the Select Committee and follows this work well. I will come to debt and deductions, because that is one of the big issues raised in the evidence that the Select Committee receives, certainly by the stakeholders that we meet. He is spot-on to draw attention to the £60 from each of our constituents that is paid back to the Government when it could be spent in our local economies.

New CPAG research finds that the digital aspects of universal credit routinely lead to wrong amounts being awarded to claimants—often those who are most vulnerable—and to breaches of rule of law principles. That is why I have repeatedly called on the Government to reverse their cuts to universal credit and working tax credits. Let us not forget that this was the biggest overnight cut to welfare in 70 years, inflicting hardship on people who were already struggling. To have done that as we came out of the teeth of the pandemic was particularly cruel.

Rather than offering one-off payments to shore up struggling families’ incomes, the DWP should reverse the damaging policies that are impacting on the most vulnerable people. It should reinstate the UC uplift at £25 per week and, of course, extend it to legacy benefits. Let us not forget the 2.5 million disabled people, so ably advocated for by the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), who were cruelly left behind without that uplift during the pandemic. The Government also need to remove the benefit cap and the two-child limit with its associated rape clause. They also need to halt the punitive sanctions regime so that all households are lifted out of poverty now and in future.

I turn to the benefit cap. As the Poverty Alliance points out, the cap’s design means that those who require the highest level of support from the benefit system are the most likely to be affected. That is simply unjust. Based on the latest departmental figures, 114,000 UK households have had their benefit capped and 86% of those are families with children. The benefit cap disproportionately impacts lone-parent families, the majority of whom are women—a point made by the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) —as well as larger and ethnic minority families.

The same is true of the two-child limit. Thousands of families with children will be pushed into poverty because Ministers on the Treasury Bench refuse to scrap the two-child limit on child tax credits and universal credit. A new London School of Economics study found that the policy’s impoverishment of larger low-income households has helped few parents get a job. Instead, its main function has been to push families further into poverty and to damage their mental health.

I wonder why Ministers are so furled to the two-child limit. The vast majority of them are actually quite embarrassed by it, and that is before we get to the associated rape clause, or as the Government like to call it, the “non-consensual sex exemption”. When this Government go around lecturing people about the values of global Britain, I am pretty sure they do not tell folk that the state will only support the first two children in the family, but if someone can prove that their child was born as a result of rape, that is okay.

[James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

indicated dissent.

[David Linden]

The Parliamentary Private Secretary is shaking his head at that, but probably because he is so embarrassed.

The five-week wait for a first payment is needlessly pushing people into hardship. The issue could easily be fixed by implementing the Scottish National party’s proposal to turn advance payment loans into non-repayable grants after the claimant has been deemed eligible. The Trussell Trust, which I referenced earlier, has consistently shown that the five-week wait for universal credit is a key driver in the need for food banks, both during those five weeks and after the payments have started.

I want to draw attention to the young parent penalty in UC, which Ministers must end. It denies single parents under the age of 25 the same level of social security as those above that age, and it pushes those affected into real poverty. Let us not forget that when under-25s go into Aldi, Lidl, Morrisons or whatever supermarket, they do not get a discount on their shopping because they are under 25. I find that Ministers have an obsession with that.

Child Support (Enforcement) Bill

James Wild Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 17th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

Happy St Patrick’s Day, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Simon Baynes), and I put on record my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) for initially tabling the Bill, and to my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Katherine Fletcher) for being Manchester’s top hon. Member for Stroud tribute act. As everybody knows, she has a clear and consistent record on this subject, and it is very good of her to step in on behalf of our colleague, who—as she says—is committed to something else in her constituency, but dearly wanted to be here.

I also put on record my thanks to the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies), and the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove), for the work that they have done on this Bill. We often consider important Bills on sitting Fridays, but we do not see all the work behind the scenes to make them into functioning legislation after the Government decide to back them. It is a tribute to the Ministers that they got this Bill into good order.

It is a privilege to speak on this Bill because it addresses some of the key gaps in the current child maintenance collection system. I was recently asked whether I had a special interest in this area, and it will come as a shock to no one in the Chamber that I do not have children—my biological clock is ticking—but I am a child of divorced parents. I am very lucky, as my parents are happily divorced. They like each other much more now they are not married. There was never any acrimony in that relationship, but the truth is that around half of marriages now end in divorce, and some of them do not end in the best circumstances.

Although we rely on the best human behaviour for parents to come to an amicable arrangement, and many can do that, there will be instances in which it simply is not possible. With the best will in the world, interfacing with the courts, especially post-covid, makes it an almost insurmountable task for some parents to get the money they need to bring up their child.

I will try to be brief and to the point, because this is an excellent Bill that I actively support. The welfare of children will be drastically improved by this Bill. Delays in obtaining a court order for the payment of child maintenance have a significant impact on the health and wellbeing of children all over the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) made the eloquent point that this is about the welfare of children. It baffles me that there are parents who genuinely have a casual disregard for the wellbeing of their own offspring in the bizarre game they play with their former partners.

One of the Bill’s central tenets, enabling the DWP to make a liability order in certain circumstances without first going to the courts, addresses a key problem in the current system and is particularly pertinent given the rising cost of living. I welcome clause 2 and the administrative liability orders, which are an elegant solution to the problem of attrition whereby some parents can afford to wait out their former partners—I think that is extremely cruel.

I agree with the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) that it is incredibly frustrating to read about some of these cases. Some individuals exercise coercive control over a partner who then takes the very difficult and sometimes painful step to separate themselves from this person who has dominated their life so much, only for that person to exercise further coercive control by withholding the funds needed to bring up their child. I have dozens of examples from my own casework, but I will highlight just two.

[James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

Two dozen?

[Chris Clarkson]

Absolutely. We will be here all afternoon.

In one case, a lady spent 12 years trying to get payments from her former partner. Her son is now 25 years old and is a qualified accountant dealing with child maintenance cases. That is the absurdity of the system.

In another case, a woman had fought for more than 10 years and had six court dates before she was finally paid the £16,000 she was owed in unpaid maintenance. She was working multiple jobs just to put food on the table, even though her former partner had the ability to provide the funds her child needed.

I was pleased to support the Child Support Collection (Domestic Abuse) Bill, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart), as it takes into account the role abuse can play in this process. The two Bills are obviously different, but they have an underlying connection.

The two cases I have highlighted magnify some important points. First, they establish that delays in child maintenance harm children. Secondly, the Bill will help to re-establish trust in the system, as single parents will not have to battle for decades to collect child support. It is important people have faith that the system will be there for them when they need it.

I am proud to support this Bill, which will give financial certainty to thousands of families up and down the country. My hon. Friends the Members for Stroud and for South Ribble, and everyone at the DWP who has worked on this, can be extremely proud that they are doing something that, while seemingly simple, will make a massive difference to a large number of people.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Wild Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that child benefit continues to be paid for all children, as well as an additional amount for any disabled children. He is hitting the wrong note here, as is the Daily Mirror, when it comes to the “Give Me Five” campaign, as this is not a targeted policy to reduce child poverty. I simply say that, by keeping the two-child policy, providing support for a maximum of two children ensures fairness between claimants and those who support themselves and their families solely through work.

[James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

7. What progress her Department has made on the review of special rules for terminal illnesses announced on 11 July 2019.

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Justin Tomlinson)]

The Department is prioritising a full review in this vital area, evaluating how the benefits system supports people nearing the end of their lives and those with severe conditions. We are making significant progress on this, having engaged with claimants, clinicians and stakeholders to bring forward options.

[James Wild]

I thank the Minister for that update and the Government for taking the initiative in reviewing these rules. My North West Norfolk constituents suffering terminal illnesses want to see the six-month rule scrapped, so will he continue to work with Motor Neurone Disease Association, Marie Curie and others to find a solution that works for all of them?

[Justin Tomlinson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. Absolutely. The reason we commissioned the review was that the status quo needs to change. We recognise that, and I wish to pay tribute to the organisations that have been supporting a thorough review, including the MND Association, Marie Curie, Hospice UK, Macmillan, the Royal College of Nursing, Sue Ryder and NHS England.