Oral Answers to Questions

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern]

I thank my hon. Friend for her important question. I know she met my colleague the Minister for Social Security and Disability recently, and I am sure that their conversations were productive on this important point.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)]

I recognise what was behind the increase in the national minimum wage for 18 to 21-year-olds, but I have been surprised by the reaction of businesses in my constituency. Those businesses have told me, in terms, that they will reduce the number of 18 to 21-year-olds they employ, because there is a higher failure rate associated with their employment, as they are new to the workforce, yet employing them will cost the same as employing those who are older. Does the Minister recognise that issue, and what will she do about it?

[Alison McGovern]

Anybody who sees that, in the British economy, there are nearly 1 million young people out of work or training—not doing anything—would say that is a dreadful legacy left by the previous Administration. That is why the youth guarantee is at the heart of our “Get Britain Working” plan.

Budget Resolutions

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

They wanted more.

[Damian Collins]

My hon. Friend is quite right: if anything, Labour wanted the lockdown to carry on longer, meaning that the debts would have been even higher. Had the Conservative party not put the public finances back in order, we would have started that pandemic with much higher levels of debt than we did. The necessary decisions were made to put the economy right.

The borrowing has gone on because of the need to pay for covid. It has been complicated by a war in Ukraine —again, I have not heard any Labour Members say that we should not have supported the Ukrainian people.

Labour Market Activity

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

The hon. Lady is tempting me to plunge into the Department of Health. I certainly hear what she has to say, but let me make a general point about mental health. The most important thing—and, to be fair, the right hon. Member for Leicester South made this point—is that we intervene at the point in the health journey that is as close to the labour market as possible and that we do so as early as possible. What we know is that the longer we allow those conditions to develop and persist, the more difficult it becomes to bring those individuals back into the workforce. That is very much at the heart of the approach I am taking in the work I am carrying out at the moment.

We are also providing more support to those who are waiting in the work capability assessment queue, promoting Disability Confident among employers and promoting Access to Work with disability employment advisers up and down the country. All of that has led to 1 million more disabled people in work since 2017, meeting our 1 million target five years early.

Looking to the future, the White Paper probably contains lots of ideas on health and disability that the right hon. Member for Leicester South has pre-empted and pre-judged—perhaps he has come to similar conclusions to those that we have already come to but are unable to speak about at the moment—so he should be a little patient.

On those in early retirement, who have increased significantly in recent times, we have taken action: with a £20 million fund we substantially increased the number of one-on-one sessions in jobcentres; we focused on skills, rolling out 50-plus champions across jobcentres up and down the country; our midlife guarantee ensured that those in that age group are confident in seeking work, understand their potential skills gaps and, critically, have looked closely at finances so that they know whether they can survive comfortably through to the end of their lives or perhaps would benefit from taking on some work. I will have more to say about the over-50s in time.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

Members of the House often hold jobs fairs, which are too often focused on the unemployed and youth sectors—I hope to mention my own jobs fair later. Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is also a need to have jobs fairs to encourage the elderly—by which I mean the over-50s, so I am elderly by that definition—to get back into work where it is suitable for them?

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The constituency and part of the country that he represents has quite a preponderance of more elderly residents, and there is certainly scope for over-50s jobs fairs. Indeed, there have been successful examples of those up and down the country, sometimes involving support from the Department for Work and Pensions.

I am aware of time, Madam Deputy Speaker, and of finishing by about twenty to six, so let me turn and say something about work coaches. These are truly brilliant people. They are people who know that work is not just a job; they understand that work is about improved health outcomes and self-esteem, and a greater sense of pride. They know it is about not just individual growth, but growing the economy, which in turn allows us to provide more tax revenues to fund those public services that we all know are the hallmark of a civilised society. Our work coaches are right at the centre of all that, and I want them to do even more to support people. I want to reward them for the work they do, where they are particularly successful.

I have laid before the House a written ministerial statement setting out how greater support will be provided to claimants, with two weeks of additional intensive support at the 13-week and 26-week stage of the universal credit journey. That will include more one-to-one support, as well as support in groups. I also want to reward job centres and those individuals who exceed the aspirational targets that we have rightly been setting. I have been carrying out that work through a series of pilots. We started with four, and yesterday I announced that that is expanding to 60. I am confident that the innovation, approach, support and confidence that we are giving our work coaches in those pilots will lead to even better outcomes and an enhancement of even more lives.

Far from being complacent, this is a Government of powerful interventions around covid, and more recently the cost of living crisis, to support people up and down the country. It is a Government of large-scale ambitious programmes to get people into work, and allow them to progress within work. It is a Government who are about creative thinking and innovation, piloting new approaches so that we can ensure we are even more successful in the future. As we met the challenges of the past, so we will continue to meet those challenges in the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak in this debate, not only because it highlights the Government’s proud record of increasing labour market activity, but because it raises the fundamental problem with Labour’s political philosophy: its historical and financial handcuffing to the union movement.

Unions are undoubtedly a good thing. In the early 19th century, if they had not been formed, they should have been. At a time of social immobility, they dealt with a huge and important social injustice: the dislocation between the bargaining power of the master and that of the servant—we just have to use the language of the time to make the case that there was a huge imbalance in bargaining position and therefore a need for unions. Times have changed, however. Nowadays, information on pay and opportunities is universal: I could go online today and look at employment opportunities in Bogotá as well as those in Bridgend. At a time of full functional employment, which is what we benefit from at the moment, other options for staff are available as well as combined bargaining.

The role of unions has moved away from the proud position in which they began. They are now more focused on the rights and privileges of members. In some cases, although not all, they are focused on things like the defence of anti-competitive Spanish practices or the prevention of increases in productivity and of modern work practices unless they are linked to increases in pay. All those things harm the economy.

It is perfectly rational, of course. If I were a London tube driver, would I join the union? Of course I would! Through union control, its members have got salaries of between £55,000 and £60,000 a year and 43 days of holiday. But does that help the economy? Is it good for society as a whole? No.

[Chris Stephens]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, but—with as much respect as I can muster—I say to him that it is not a bad thing that trade union-organised workplaces have higher pay than non-unionised workplaces. Surely the fact that people have more money means that they can spend money in the economy and help the private sector.

[Jerome Mayhew]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. The question is: at what cost does this come and who pays the price? It is the young, the unemployed and the old who are outside the club of unionisation. They are the ones who pay the price, and the evidence is in the data.

It is an extraordinary fact that every Labour Government in history have ended up destroying employment, leaving more people out of work than when they came into power. The figures hide the real cost of Labour being in hock to the unions. I mean “in hock” literally: since 2010, it has received £142 million. That is excluding individual contributions to Opposition right hon. and hon. Members, and not even mentioning the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), so actually the number is a lot higher.

Raising employment barriers skews what would otherwise be a much more sensible employment policy for the Opposition. The costs are paid by those outside the club. Look at youth employment. In 2010, Labour left office with youth unemployment at about 20%. Right now, even after a global pandemic, youth unemployment is at 11.3%—almost half. Look at the long-term unemployed. In the 2000s, as we have already heard, Labour left about 1.4 million people unemployed for longer than 12 months. Today, the figure is 270,000, roughly a quarter of the number under the terrible record of Labour. Look at the people who are harder to employ—those, perhaps, with disabilities. Under this Government, there are 1.3 million more people with disabilities in employment than before 2016. That is the proud record of this Government. This Government do not pontificate about pay and employment; they get on with creating a dynamic labour market, supporting those most in need, not the union paymasters.

We have created a labour market not just by removing barriers to employment, but by having a benefits system that always makes work pay: the universal credit system, the destruction of which the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) made the key plank of his 2019 election manifesto. Labour Members all fought the last election on the basis that they wanted to get rid of universal credit, and the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) continued that policy. In October 2020, when he was already leader of the Labour party, he said that “in the long term” universal credit needed to be replaced

“because… it traps people in poverty.”

However, given what we have heard from the hon. Member opposite, that now appears to be Labour policy.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I am the right hon. Member.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Right hon. Member: he is quite correct. It seems that we agree on the concept behind universal credit. When did he experience that damascene conversion?

The Government are providing extra help, not for the unions but for the young, the disabled and those who are termed “the old”—meaning those over the age of 50, which, in my view, is hardly old. For the young, we have halved youth unemployment. We have the kickstart scheme, which the right hon. Gentleman criticised earlier, saying that it did not help 250,000 people into employment. However, it did help 160,000 into employment, including many of my constituents. As for the disabled, 1.3 million more have been employed since 2017. For the old, we have the age-friendly employer pledge and the 50PLUS champions. This is a work in progress, but it shows the direction of travel of this dynamic Government.

More widely, we are boosting support for 600,000 people on universal credit by securing greater access to job coaches. It is this Government who have doubled the number of job coaches, increasing it by 13,500 to give more help to unemployed people wishing to get back into work. I have seen this lately in my constituency. The Jobcentre Plus in Fakenham does amazing work, and the staff say the job coaches are wonderful and do a fantastic job.

There is a great deal to do. There is, for instance, post-covid recovery. We are experiencing a reduction in economic activity, and that position needs to be improved, but I trust that this Government—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order.

Social Security (Additional Payments) (No. 2) Bill

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 21st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

I rise to support this enabling Bill, which will enable the payment of additional cost of living support for many millions of the poorest in society. Before I go into the detail of the proposals, it will be useful to set the debate into context, which is of course that the best welfare, where it is accessible, is access to a job. We know the obvious financial implications of being in employment, but there are equally important mental health benefits.

[Debbie Abrahams]

Can the hon. Gentleman explain then why 4.2 million people in work are in poverty and six out of 10 people in a low-paid job will still be in a low-paid job 10 years later?

[Jerome Mayhew]

I am not saying that employment of any description is the silver bullet. We have phased movement under universal credit, because it is a tapering benefit from unemployment through additional support from Government that diminishes as pay rates increase. Most hon. Members would accept that that is the right approach, but I also accept that the hon. Lady rightly drew attention earlier to the disability employment gap. Although I recognise the recent unwelcome upward tick in that, the direction of travel and the long-term trend is downward, which I wholeheartedly welcome.

In my constituency of Broadland, the universal credit claimant rate is only 2%. Bearing in mind that a percentage of those will be in employment, in my part of the country at least we benefit from full functional employment. It is a feather in the Government’s cap that the national average universal credit claimant rate is just 3.6%; we see that in particular when we look at youth unemployment. In Broadland, the rate among the 18 to 24-year-old cohort—who are often hard to employ and most quickly affected by economic downturn—is just 3.6%, whereas nationally it is 4.6%. It is worth taking a moment to make some international comparisons. In France, the rate of unemployment among 16 to 24-year-olds is more than 20%, and the equivalent figure for Spain is about 35%. Something is happening in the United Kingdom that is not happening on the European mainland. My submission is that it is because Conservative policies are leading to fuller employment, particularly in those cohorts that have traditionally found it harder to gain and retain employment. That is down to the brave decisions of this and former Conservative Administrations in creating a dynamic labour market that has allowed and encouraged employment and, yes, the ability to reduce the employment count for employers. That has led to fuller employment in this country than there has been in areas that are perhaps more unionised, where once someone is in the club their job is protected but that comes at the cost of the young and the poorest.

The Government have been right to focus on a dynamic labour market, in addition to direct Government support in schemes such as the £2 billion kickstart scheme, which worked so well in the aftermath of the pandemic, and the restart scheme. It cost an eye-watering £2.9 billion, but UC claimants of nine months or more got additional focus from their Jobcentre Plus work coaches to help them step back into employment, countering the terrible drain on the country and the individual cost to people’s lives of long-term unemployment.

On work coaches, this Government have doubled their number in 2021, increasing it by 13,500. I have seen these work coaches at work in my constituency, at the Jobcentre Plus in Fakenham. I pay particular tribute to all the staff members there, who have a huge amount of enthusiasm and expertise, and are going the extra mile day in, day out to get the long-term unemployed in my area into jobs. The total number of UC claimants in Broadland is 1,130. They are not all long-term unemployed, but, in a period of full employment, we just need an extra bit of help to get that hardcore group into the jobs, which are available. The additional work coaches are exactly the right way to go, which is bearing fruit.

The apprenticeship schemes are also being supported and encouraged by the Government. Members from around the House will recall that two weeks ago it was National Apprenticeship Week. To celebrate that and encourage its further uptake, I visited a business in my constituency, Ben Burgess, which many in the east will recognise as agricultural machinery suppliers of great repute. At any one time, the company has about 30 apprenticeships, which, typically, start at the age of 16. The apprentices get taken through training both on the job and at a national training facility in the midlands, where they have university-style education as well as on-the-job training in their place of employment. They come out of that scheme with a machinery technician qualification, a job and a career, leading to a really fulfilling lifestyle. That is exactly the kind of thing that the Government should be and are supporting.

I cannot move on from this area of my speech without a little plug for my jobs fair, which is taking place at Taverham High School on 10 March. It is one of a series that I have been holding and will continue to hold. My first one was in Fakenham, in the aftermath of the covid pandemic, when my assumption was that we would have a tidal wave of unemployment. The estimate at the time was that we would have 12% unemployment. I set in place a jobs fair to try to solve that problem, but because of the incredible intervention of the then Chancellor, now Prime Minister, we did not have 12% unemployment. The Government put their arms around the economy, supported people in their jobs and the potential crisis did not materialise.

On the detail of the proposed legislation, I fully support the uplift in the national living wage by 9.7%, taking it to £10.42 an hour, and not just for those whose employment is at the national living wage. As a former employer, I know very well that the national living wage is the base upon which many, many layers of employment judge their own job offers. We have created the conditions where there is full functional employment in the vast majority of the country, so employers are having to compete for staff. One way—it is not the only way—to compete is on pay. As the national living wage base rises, the gradated competition in pay rises as well, and that has a really beneficial effect.

[David Linden]

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has seen the Budget submissions from both the CBI and the TUC. It is not often that they both sing from the same hymn sheet, but one key theme they complain and raise concerns about is staffing shortages. I accept that the national living wage is one factor, but does he also accept the concerns of both the CBI and the TUC that the Government have a problem with staffing issues, which cannot necessarily be helped by something like Brexit?

[Jerome Mayhew]

I am really grateful to the hon. Member for making that intervention, because we had a similar discussion in an earlier debate and he gives me the opportunity to say what I kicked myself for not saying last time. As a former employer, if one has access to—let us call it this—unlimited cheap labour then there is no incentive to increase productivity or invest in further plant and machinery. As a result, we have what he was also complaining about, which is the low productivity conundrum. On access to labour, I recall him saying in an earlier intervention a couple of weeks ago that in Scotland the problem is not having too many people, but an exodus of people from Scotland. I just wonder what is the difference between Conservative-run England, where people in their hundreds of thousands are seeking to come into this country, and SNP-run Scotland, where they are leaving in their tens of thousands?

[David Linden]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I am hopefully allowing him to sit down and think about that just a little bit more. That might help him.

The reality is that immigration policy is controlled by the United Kingdom Government. The Scottish Government and huge swathes of civic society have said that our problem has never been emigration, but immigration. We are looking to get more people to come to live and work in Scotland. It is the UK Government and the Home Office who make that more difficult. On Friday, I had an asylum seeker at my surgery, somebody who is incredibly well qualified and who has something he wants to offer this country, but because of a decision taken in 2002 by the Labour Government he is restricted from working here. He wants to work in Scotland, but he cannot do so because of an intransigent UK immigration policy. That is the reality of our immigration problems. It is not some mini-tartan issue that he might want to dress it up as.

[Jerome Mayhew]

This probably strays a little far from the topic of the debate, Mr Deputy Speaker, which is not about immigration policy, but I note in passing that if the hon. Gentleman wants to encourage people to work in his country, having a supertax on employment is probably not the best way to go about it.

Cost of living inflation hits working families too, so I welcome the £900 cost of living payments that will benefit fully 8 million families, as well as the disability payment of £150 to help with the higher cost of equipment needs. That will also benefit some 6 million people. If a job is the best form of welfare, then reducing inflation is the best way to tackle the cost of living crisis. My commendation to the Minister is that we should stick to our guns that reducing inflation during the course of this year, halving it as the Prime Minister has promised to do, is absolutely the right way to do it. The Bank of England currently predicts that inflation will dip below 4% by the end of this year, so that, overwhelmingly, is the best way to deal with these longer-term problems—not one-off payments which seek to address a symptom rather than dealing with the cause. While it is necessary to address the symptoms in the way the Bill does, I am grateful to the Government for also dealing with the cause of the cost of living crisis—inflation resulting from Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine—because that is the long-term solution to these problems.

Social Security and Pensions

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[David Linden]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I think I am unique in that I am one of the few people who serve as a Member of this House who has been in his constituency office and spoken to his constituency staff—some of us go on holiday to places like Newtownards. He is absolutely right. I ask the Government to put just as much effort into advertising things like pension credit take-up as they do into propaganda-like billboards in our constituencies about levelling up. If that amount of resource were put into advertising pension credit, perhaps we would see it go further.

The British Government’s assault on pensioners does not just extend to the pitiful state pension. Let us not forget that the Tories also scrapped free TV licences for over-75s, including in Broadland. People who watch on and see the Westminster incompetence of this place will know that pensioners across these islands have already been short-changed by £6,500 on average due to state pension underpayments. Peter Schofield, the permanent secretary at the DWP, recently told our Select Committee that—

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[David Linden]

I am happy to give way.

[Jerome Mayhew]

The hon. Gentleman mentions Broadland and says that pensioners are being short-changed by the Government. How can he reconcile that statement with the triple lock on pensions, which raises pensions year on year by 2.5%, the rate of inflation or average earnings—a ratchet effect increasing the value of pensions when compared with the economy at large?

[David Linden]

The triple lock the hon. Gentleman refers to is the one that he and his party broke a manifesto commitment on recently, resulting in many pensioners being diddled.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Could the Minister hold in his excitement for one moment? He is the Minister responsible for the inadequacy of benefits; perhaps he should reflect on that. Yes, the war in Ukraine has had an effect on global energy prices, although the effect has been bigger in some countries than others. Countries such as France deal with that by taking energy companies into public ownership to protect their citizens from the grotesque energy price increases that his Government are quite happy to mete out to the people of this country.

[Jerome Mayhew]

rose—

[Jeremy Corbyn]

No, I will carry on with my speech. The 10% benefit rise is obviously better than no rise at all. During the Budget statement, the previous Chancellor would not even answer the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), on whether there would be any increase whatsoever to benefits. A 10% increase is obviously an improvement on what was provided by the last Chancellor, but it does not even meet inflation. It comes nowhere near to meeting the rate of food inflation, which is running at around 15% to 16% per year. Families or individuals who rely on benefits spend a wholly disproportionate amount of their income on food and energy; better-off people spend a much lower proportion on those things. The rate of inflation for the poorest 10% of our country is far greater than the 10% or 11% figure that the Bank of England puts forward.

Many issues could be raised, and I will raise a few very quickly so that all Members who wish to speak can do so. Some years ago, a two-child benefit cap policy was introduced, which many of us were, and remain, concerned about. Those of us who represent constituencies with a considerable number of large families know that they suffer very badly. The two-child benefit cap obviously has a disproportionate effect on the largest and poorest families in our society. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us where the morality is in saying that the third, fourth or fifth child of a family is less important than the first or second. It is a simple moral question. If we want to look after all the people in our society—I like to think that we all do—that should include all children, irrespective of the size of the family. The third, fourth, fifth or sixth child is completely unaware of where they lie in the pecking order when they are born. They find out later that their presence and that of subsequent siblings reduces income for their family. It does not seem morally right that we should pursue that policy.

The question of the benefit cap and its effect on people in our society is massive, as the Chair of the Select Committee pointed out, as did the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) and others. The disproportionate effect on people living in the private rented sector is huge. My constituency is inner-city and has a fairly large number of council and housing association properties in it. Their rents are obviously within the local housing allowance, but the vast majority of private rents are nowhere near within the local housing allowance. I was talking to someone in a hostel who was trying to find a private rented flat to move into. They tried every agency they could find; they walked the streets and scoured the newspapers and goodness knows how many websites to try to find a flat within the local housing allowance in inner London, near their school and support network, but they could not get anywhere near it.

Unless we raise or abolish the benefit cap, we have to intervene in the housing market and freeze private sector rents, so that living in the private rented sector is at least sustainable, and those living there do not have to pay part of their rent out of the benefit that they receive. What is going on is simply unfair. I would hope that the Minister would understand the issue with the cap, and the poverty that it brings for so many people in our society. In my constituency, probably more than a third of the community live in the private rented sector—there are probably more in other constituencies—and they are suffering as a result of this issue.

Another issue that I would like to raise is that of people with no recourse to public funds, and the difficulties that they face in our society. It is a bold, dramatic and strong statement when a Government announce that someone is allowed to enter the country but is not allowed any recourse to public funds whatsoever. This issue was raised two weeks ago at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in the context of our adherence to the Istanbul convention on the protection of women, of which the Minister will be aware. The report that we received raised concerns that in some member countries in which there is no recourse to public funds—the problem is not exclusive to the UK—women in an abusive relationship might not have settled status when their partner does. Those women are unable to gain independent security and safety, and often are unaware of the domestic violence provisions that they might be able to call on. Will the Minister look seriously at the very well thought-out report from the Council of Europe about our adherence to the Istanbul convention, which I am sure he supports? Will he recognise that no recourse to public funds affects not only the individual concerned but the wider family, if there is one?

If hon. Members talk to people who are sleeping rough on our streets, turning up at food banks in our communities or begging on tubes and elsewhere, they should ask them what their situation is. Many have been unsuccessful in their initial asylum application, but may ultimately win on appeal, and they have no access to any benefits whatsoever. They live in the most desperate poverty, are prey to crime and abuse, and can be abused and exploited by those with criminal intent in our society. Through this policy, we are creating an incomeless underclass in the major cities of this country. I know the Minister would not want that to be the case, but unfortunately the implementation of this policy leads to that.

The last point I want to raise is to follow on from what the hon. Member for Glasgow East and others have been saying about the pension level in our society, and the numbers of pensioners who are entitled to support beyond the level of the state pension but are simply unaware of it, do not know how to apply for it and do not get it. I also want to mention the women who were duped by the way in which the state pension retirement age was raised and are now living in desperate poverty—colloquially known as the WASPI women. I think they deserve justice. They were very badly treated and my friend, the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), certainly took their case up when he was shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Pensioner households, like everyone else, are facing terrible stress at the moment from food and energy price rises. I heard from the media yesterday that the Government have no intention of continuing the energy price limitation after April, but if I am wrong on that I am happy to be corrected. The protection that exists now is only a protection relating to the 100% increase in energy prices that we have already had. If you go down any street in any poorer part of this country in the evening, you see darkness; you do not see people with their lights on. You see people going to bed early because they cannot afford to heat their home. This is real. Children in the poorest households are underfed and they are cold because their homes cannot be properly heated. Many elderly people are huddling in libraries during the day just to try and keep warm. Is this really a sensible or fair way of going on? Other Governments, including the French Government, have intervened to try to control the energy market and ensure that energy price rises do not get to the levels they are in this country. Our Government are not prepared to do that.

This benefit uprating will no doubt go through this evening, but all it does is meet the headline of inflation that the consumer prices index set last year. What we need is something much more bold, with much more intervention, that recognises energy price rises, food price rises and the enormous rent rises in the private rented sector. Those are the biggest drivers of poverty in our society.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). He refused to give way to me during his speech when he made reference to France being a particularly good example of a country that had reacted well to energy inflation. He forgot to mention that 80% of all French energy is generated by nuclear power and is therefore not affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I look forward to his support for the roll-out of nuclear power stations across the United Kingdom.

Turning to the main body of the debate, I welcome the Government’s draft benefits uprating order, but I stand here to represent an argument that I do not think has yet been made in this debate but that has been raised many times by my constituents and those of other Members, certainly on the Conservative side of the House: is it fair, during a period of full employment, that we should increase benefits at the rate of inflation when those in employment are seeing their wages rise by about half as much? This has been raised multiple times, and forcefully, by constituents of mine. They say that it is simply not fair that people who are just about managing, who are working to support their own families and who are paying tax but also being self-reliant, should have wage rises of about 5% when benefits are being raised by double that.

[David Linden]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jerome Mayhew]

I will give way in a moment, because what I am about to say might answer the hon. Gentleman’s question.

I think the answer is: yes, it is fair. That is because it is morally right to protect the purchasing power of those very poorest families at an absolute level, even when other people in employment are suffering as well. I think it is right, because personal inflation is at its highest in the poorest families and food inflation is responsible for a higher percentage of their spending. It was mentioned earlier that food inflation might be running at about 19%, but I think it is about 17.1%. It is morally right for the Government to represent and look after the very poorest in society while at the same time, crucially, always making sure that work pays.

In my constituency we have 2% unemployment. We have a huge demand for staff. I have a very odd situation in a town that I represent called Fakenham. I visited a food bank there that is run by the Samaritans, and it is only a few yards away from a jobcentre where they told me that anyone who had two arms and two legs could get a job. There are lots of jobs available, and I have had meetings with frustrated employers in Fakenham who cannot get enough staff, at every level of the employment sector, including those with no specialist skills other than their natural talent. That jobcentre is 200 yards away from a food bank.

[David Linden]

The hon. Gentleman and I could probably have a long drawn-out debate about why there are so many vacancies in the jobs market and how the UK Government’s immigration policy impacts on that. I would ask him to reflect on the misconception that food banks are used solely by people who are out of work. We are increasingly seeing people who are in work and suffering from in-work poverty using them. Has his local food bank told him how many of the people using it are experiencing in-work poverty?

[Jerome Mayhew]

That is an interesting question, and I have asked exactly the same of our food bank. I have asked it to give me the data on how many of the people are on benefits and whether they are in work or unemployed, because it is a mystery to me. It refused to give me that data, which I think is really surprising, because that is important to us as policymakers. We need to know whether people need to use food banks because benefits on their own are the cause or whether it is about in-work benefits and the low level of pay.

[Amy Callaghan]

Further to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (David Linden), it would be interesting to know how many people working in that jobcentre are having to access that nearby food bank. It would be really useful if the hon. Gentleman could inquire about those figures.

[Jerome Mayhew]

That certainly has not been raised with me. That is not information that I can supply, because I simply do not know the answer, but I would be amazed if they were using it. The people working in the jobcentre are very optimistic about the local economy and the opportunities that are available in Fakenham and more widely.

The hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) raised in passing the role of immigration in low pay. In my submission, this is one of the areas where the Government have been right to limit immigration, particular low-skilled immigration, because that gives increased bargaining power to the lowest paid. Anecdotally, I have seen hourly rates across my constituency going up in industries that are seeking to attract harder-to-find staff. The hourly rate is going up to £9, £10, £11 and even £12 an hour for unskilled work in order to attract new staff where they are harder to find. That is a key benefit and a good economic case for taking control of immigration in a way that the SNP would not like to see.

[David Linden]

I am certainly very much in favour of people in Scotland having control of their own immigration system, because our problem has never been immigration; frankly, our problem has been emigration. The hon. Member talks about how successful the UK Government’s immigration policy has been. Can he explain why there are fields all across these islands where fruit is rotting because we do not have workers coming here to pick it?

[Jerome Mayhew]

The hon. Member should know that the seasonal agricultural workers scheme allowed, from memory, 40,000 seasonal workers to enter the country last year, and that its application was not fully taken up by the agricultural sector, so that is not the reason why fruit was left rotting in the fields.

Returning to my main point, the Government are right to protect the buying power of the poorest. At the same time, they are also right to ensure that work always pays. The reduction in the taper rate from 63% to 55% is crucial in raising the income of those in work so that they do not need to rely on food banks, as is increasing the work allowance by £500. Perhaps the difference between Government and Opposition Members on this is that we on the Government Benches think that the best solution to poverty is always work—allowing people to get back into work; encouraging them to grow their skills and employability, and the value of their employability, as they progress through their career. I think the Government have got the balance right, supporting the poorest families while ensuring that work continues to pay.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mims Davies]

My right hon. Friend is exactly right. We have heard about the cost of living challenge, but this is a global challenge; it is not only for us. We absolutely need to work together so that every family is doing better.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

The best solution for low-income families is not increases in universal credit but access to better-paid employment, so will the Minister join me in encouraging the 1,130 universal credit claimants in Broadland to come to my jobs fair on 10 March at Taverham High School?

[Mims Davies]

I love a jobs fair; I have another one coming up in March in my own constituency of Mid Sussex. Opening up opportunities for people just down the road can often make the difference, and I applaud my hon. Friend for doing this. Every Member should be having their own jobs fair.

Child Support (Enforcement) Bill

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 9th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

It should not be controversial across the House that parents should be responsible for their children unless they really cannot do that and need help. That parental responsibility is in all of us and the state welfare benefits and state systems in many other ways will step in to support families when it is absolutely necessary to do so. However, parents are too often let down by ex-partners for a range of reasons and they do not receive the support that they are due financially or otherwise.

In the case of child maintenance issues, parents who are receiving that money and, in many cases, relying on it to live on should be able to trust the child maintenance system to move as swiftly as possible to help them to recover maintenance arrears when it becomes necessary to do so. I am interested in that area through my experience as a family law solicitor, for my constituents who regularly bring incredibly complex child maintenance matters to me, and because this is an area of Government business—in a fantastic Department that works incredibly hard to help people who come to it with their issues—that can actually lift children out of poverty. I want to give the Child Maintenance Service, my constituents and everyone involved as much support as possible to do their job, which is where the Bill comes in.

This is an important measure to improve the recovery of arrears from parents who fail to meet their financial obligations to pay child maintenance. Before going into more detail about what this Bill aims to achieve, it may be helpful if I explain the purpose of the Child Maintenance Service for anybody who is not aware. The CMS is to facilitate the payment of child maintenance between separated parents who are unable to reach their own agreement following separation. That is an incredibly challenging job done in very difficult circumstances. Many Members will have experience of the CMS through their constituents. Some of that will be positive and some will be negative, but those Members who remember the Child Support Agency will I am sure acknowledge that the CMS, which was launched in 2012 to replace the Child Support Agency, is performing relatively well and is much better than previous systems. My parents are separated. My dad has some war stories about the Child Support Agency. We must not forget that that thing was on the front of newspapers, and that is not something that we see with this system, even though I am here in the Chamber saying that we can make improvements.

To emphasise the importance of the service, I should say that, in the past 12 months, more than £1 billion of payments were arranged or collected through the Child Maintenance Service. Under the Child Maintenance Service Act 2012, payments are calculated so that they are fair and affordable for both parents. That is key for these things to be successful.

The CMS uses gross income for calculation, whereas the old system was based on net income. To keep the impact of the calculation broadly the same, the 2012 scheme introduced modifications to the percentages with the banding system. In family law, it should be known that we would do the calculations for child maintenance for the parent client before us in our office before we turned to the other parent for other maintenance payments, so these calculations and the formula are important and it does work in many cases.

The statutory scheme is designed to limit the number of changes throughout the year. That is why the threshold for in-year changes to income is set at 25%, so that the liability remains consistent and parents can factor this into their own financial planning. Children are expensive. We need to be able to plan.

The CMS manages cases through one of two services. The first is direct pay and the second is collect and pay. Direct pay does what it says on the tin. The CMS provides a calculation and a payment schedule, but, effectively, the parents arrange the payments between them. For collect and pay, the CMS calculates how much maintenance should be paid, collects the money from the paying parent and pays it to the receiving parent, so it is a much more interventionist activity. Cases in collect and pay tend to include parents where a collaborative arrangement has either failed or has not been possible to achieve. Paying parents on collect and pay are therefore considered to be less likely to meet their payment responsibilities.

The difference that child maintenance payments make to children’s lives is critical, and the CMS takes action to tackle payment breakdowns at the earliest opportunity, to re-establish compliance and to collect unpaid amounts that have accrued. I give credit to groups such as Gingerbread, which often raise with MPs and Select Committees the impact on single parents; often, we are trying to help single parents through the CMS support schemes.

Where compliance is not achieved and the parent is employed, the CMS will attempt to deduct their maintenance, including any arrears where appropriate, directly from their earnings. Employers are obliged by law to co-operate with that action. Enforcement powers also allow for deductions to be taken directly from bank accounts, including joint accounts and business accounts, either as a lump sum or regular amounts—so far, so good. That is the run of the mill enforcement stuff. Members needed to understand that to understand the more severe enforcement measures used to collect child maintenance, which is what the main part of the Bill deals with.

The CMS is committed to modernising and improving and, as part of that commitment, it is reviewing the enforcement powers to make them as effective as possible in recovering arrears from parents who are failing to meet their financial obligations to their children. Under current legislation, the CMS must apply to the magistrates or the sheriff courts to obtain a liability order before the use of enforcement powers such as instructing enforcement agents or sheriff offices, or the use of more stringent court-based enforcement actions. So there is an extra step to go to court to get that stage of enforcement. Enforcements can include disqualification from driving or from holding a UK passport, or committing a non-compliant parent to prison. So it is serious stuff.

Obtaining a liability order through the courts is time-consuming. At the moment, the Government website tells parents that it can take anything from a few weeks to a few months. We know that there are now also an awful lot of delays in the courts—there was a pause during the pandemic, when the courts were closed—so I imagine it has been even more difficult recently to obtain these things.

That delay in receiving child maintenance has a consequence for the receiving parent and the children. Delay is bad for children, and we know that that principle underpins much family law. Furthermore, this additional step in enforcing debt is no longer required by other Departments, such as His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Other Departments are doing what my Bill is trying to achieve, so give me those powers so that the CMS can do the same.

We are also trying to introduce a lot of speed. The Bill will repeal the sections of the Child Support Act 1991 requiring the CMS to apply to the courts to obtain the liability order. It will stop applications to the courts by making amendments to uncommenced powers in the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008. Those powers, once enacted, will allow enforcement measures to be used more quickly against parents who have failed to meet their obligation.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes the good point that the procedural step in the current system of requiring the CMS to apply to the courts for a liability order creates delay. Can she give the House an indication, based on her experience, of the sort of delay we are talking about?

[Siobhan Baillie]

I have been looking through my casework, and the delay has been months in some cases. What is worse is that, even though the system we have is well-meaning, few parents have trust that anything will ever happen. Even where there have been successful liability orders—they are in the hundreds, and I have figures here—any delay becomes the chat in the communities and there is no trust. Any delay or confusion about what can and cannot be achieved is damaging to these families. I thank my hon. Friend for his important intervention.

To preserve the safeguards for paying parents, the Bill makes provisions for secondary legislation to allow the paying parent a right of appeal to a court against an administrative liability order—so there will be appeal rights. The first regulations relating to appeals against liability orders will be subject to the affirmative procedure.

The Bill will operate across England, Wales and Scotland, as they are all part of the same child maintenance regime. The court system governing the enforced collection of child maintenance is governed by broadly the same statutory provisions in England and Wales. In Scotland, however, the judicial system is devolved, so provisions in the Bill allow for a later commencement date, by which time changes to the appropriate court processes can be made. For that reason, the Child Maintenance Service will work with legal colleagues in the Scottish Government to ensure that the policy is effectively delivered in Scotland. I would also say, to those colleagues who always are interested in devolution issues, that Northern Ireland has its own arrangements.

To conclude, this is quite a techie thing—it is nerdy, which is why I like it. However, it introduces a genuine change for families on the ground by avoiding delay, which is harmful for children.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

I, too, rise to support this Bill and the great efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) in support of families.

Relationships are a wonderful thing. From my personal experience, they are the aspect of life that gives me greatest fulfilment. What lies at the core of our relationships provides the value of life, much more so than careers, even careers in this place. We have to recognise, however, that they do sometimes go wrong and that the negative experiences can be as intense as the positive ones.

Although relationships can change, responsibilities for our actions remain. That is particularly the case when children are involved. A person’s livelihood and support for their children are factors when it comes to a broken-down relationship. It is very important to say that when relationships that involve children break down, in the vast majority of cases the absent parent continues to provide financial support on a voluntary basis. Negotiations take place, often without solicitors or lawyers, and an informal arrangement is reached that is satisfactory to both parties. What we are dealing with here, however, is the small minority of cases where negotiations have failed or where an agreement that has been reached is subsequently breached. That is why the CMS is such an important agency to provide support for those families who are most in need.

Existing child support legislation is intended to provide a mechanism for the collection of support funds when voluntary agreements have failed. My hon. Friend set out in her opening speech the various mechanisms that are currently available. It is true that under the current scheme, the CMS can apply to the court in certain circumstances in order to get a liability order to seize, through the bailiffs or the sheriff courts, assets to satisfy a debt. The reason I intervened earlier was to highlight the hugely significant role that delay plays in frustrating the needs of families and, in particular, the children. That is particularly the case in the covid aftermath, when delays in the civil justice system are very substantial. I am sorry to say that even before covid, there was significant strain in the civil court process, leading to lots of delay. That delay matters, because we are dealing with the financial support necessary to feed, clothe, heat and support children.

Right hon. and hon. Members will be intimately familiar with the problem, because of the casework that they receive. To my mind, the Bill is very timely, because just last month a constituent came to me who was owed by the absent—non-resident—parent the sum of £136,833 in arrears of child maintenance. We have to stop for a moment and consider the profound impact of that non-payment on the children. It is simply not good enough to say, “You can go back to the CMS, which in time can make an application to the courts for a liability order. Once that has been processed, we can apply to the bailiff court, and in due course we will get an order to seize goods,”

I welcome the Bill’s intention, which is to cut out the delay of having to apply to the court, and to give powers to the DWP to make a liability order in certain circumstances that allows assets to be targeted via the bailiff or sheriff courts, without the additional factor of delay. Essentially, the Bill aims to fill a lacuna in the armoury of the recovery of funds to support children, and maintain financial responsibility for children from a non-resident parent. It will help my constituents, and for that reason alone I support it.

State Pension Triple Lock

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

I am not the first Member of the House to recognise that this motion is not a serious request of the Government, because we have the autumn statement in just nine days’ time. It is blatantly a political stunt to gain headlines.

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I was going to make reference in my speech to Conservative Members saying that this debate was a stunt. It is not a stunt; it is a political lever. This is an Opposition day—this is what we do in this place. I ask the hon. Gentleman please to correct the record.

[Jerome Mayhew]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s intervention; it brings to mind a number of the interventions and speeches from Labour Members talking about pensioners’ fears as they consider the outcome of the triple lock decision. Surely this debate, called by Labour, does not reduce fear but increases it, and that in itself is wholly irresponsible. It is scaremongering.

I am surprised that Labour wants to draw attention to pensions policy, because the Government’s activities over the last dozen years put Labour to shame. Let us look at pensions more widely, because pensioners get income from multiple sources. We have the state pension, but there are also private and company pensions, individual personal savings and other state benefits in addition to the pension.

I will focus first on auto-enrolment. Under Labour, members of the public increasingly just could not afford to save for their retirement—either that, or Gordon Brown’s famous tax raid on pension pots simply made it not worthwhile to save for a pension. If we look at the data, during the 2000s private sector pension membership declined. In the year 2000, 47% of people had private pensions, but by 2012 that had fallen to 32%—a decline of 47%. By changing from an opt-in to an opt-out system, auto-enrolment, brought in by the Conservative-led Government, transformed pension saving in this country. In my view, it was perhaps the single most important intervention of Government policy over the past decade.

The figures speak for themselves: now, 75% of employees are regularly saving and benefiting from tax-free employer contributions. I used to be an employer before coming to this place, and I employed hundreds of very young people—typically 18 to 25-year-olds. We had a company pension scheme and, as a responsible employer, I tried to persuade them to start pensions, but the take-up was very low. The impact of the change to auto-enrolment was amazing, and that has been backed up by our company contributions. It is a wholly beneficial thing and it has reversed the roles.

The other point worth making is that this is Conservative values in action. Not for us the state’s putting its arms around people and being wholly responsible for individuals’ futures; we want to see people’s being helped to take responsibility for their own futures, with the state there to help the most vulnerable, and that is exactly what the Government have done in this case.

It has also been mentioned multiple times that the state pension was not a Labour idea; it was instigated by the Conservative-led Government. The right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) is no longer in his place, but I sometimes wonder what conversations in the Treasury were like in 1999, when he was part of Gordon Brown’s inner circle. Presumably, the debate was, “Do we raise the pension by 75p or 50p, or shall we push the boat out and increase it by £1?” It is rich for the Labour party to start lecturing the Conservative Government, whose policy the triple lock actually is, given its own lamentable record on pensions. Labour has nothing to teach us here.

[Anthony Browne]

My hon. Friend has made some interesting points, and I think this debate has been useful to remind the Chamber that the triple lock is our policy. Given the point he has just made, and continuing the Christmas theme, does he agree that Labour attacking our track record on the state pension is a bit like Scrooge attacking Father Christmas for not being generous enough?

[Jerome Mayhew]

I will let that intervention speak for itself, but I entirely agree with the sentiment behind it.

Since 2010, because of the Conservative triple lock, pensions have increased by £2,300 in cash terms and by £720 in real terms. There will come a point when the triple lock will need to be reviewed; because of its statistical ratchet effect, there will come a time when we should properly remove the triple lock to maintain balance between the various cohorts of society. To date, however, it has been a powerful tool to raise pension values above those Labour lows in the 2000s that we have heard about.

In addition to the triple lock, Labour also ignored the problem of people’s—overwhelmingly women—child-rearing years not counting towards the state pension. I am delighted that, again, it was the Conservative Government who stood up for women and for the family and the importance of child-rearing, so that now raising a family counts towards the new state pension. More than 3 million will now be £550 better off as a result.

I have a minute and a half left, but I will not use it all, because others have set out the long list of additional benefits devised by the Government to assist with the cost of living crisis caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We Conservatives recognise that pensioners are particularly vulnerable because they are on a fixed income, but there has been an additional £300 for winter fuel payments, the £400 discount on energy bills, £150 for affected council tax payments, and £650 additional means-tested support, as well as the additional payment for those with disabilities—and the list goes on.

On the triple lock, we will have to wait and see for nine more days, but even without it pensioners have been looked after by this Government. As the Prime Minister has repeatedly said, and as his record shows, all decisions taken by this Government will be compassionate and will look after the most vulnerable in society.

Cost of Living Increases: Pensioners

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alan Brown]

I completely agree. I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting that point; he has been at the forefront of the campaign to highlight the effects of increased energy costs on those who are off the gas grid. That threefold increase in fuel costs is completely unsustainable and really does lead people to the choice between heating and eating.

Let us look at conventional households covered by the energy cap. Next month, the cost of energy for the average household will have increased by 75% compared with April 2021, a rise of more than £800 a year. Pensioners spend more time in their homes and are more likely to feel the effects of cold or damp, so increased energy costs disproportionally hit the elderly. Not being able to afford to heat their homes puts their health more at risk. There are already something like 10,000 premature deaths a year due to fuel poverty, and that was before the huge energy cost increases. It is truly shameful that in an energy-rich country, or group of nations, people are dying prematurely because they cannot afford to heat their homes.

National Energy Action has estimated that the cap increase will have caused a 33% increase in fuel poverty rates. If this rise continues without Government interventions, come October we will be looking at some 8 million fuel-poor households in the UK, with perhaps between 2.5 million and 3 million of those households containing pensioners. When we look beyond the phrase “heating or eating”, we see that the grim reality for people faced with that choice is starving or freezing or suffering in damp houses, and that brings us back to the possibility of more people dying prematurely. It is truly shameful.

The interventions that the Government have announced to date clearly do not go far enough. Even worse, the removal of the triple lock is taking more than £500 a year from the pockets of pensioners, as the Government’s own Red Book demonstrates. Earlier today and this evening, Tory Ministers were arguing that wage increases were a false measurement owing to the partial recovery from covid. They have used that to justify breaking the triple lock. Just four months on, however, we have evidence that a much larger pension increase than 3.1% is required. The facts are clear: the spring statement in two days’ time will provide the one opportunity to reinstate the triple lock, or at least, as a bare minimum, to introduce a mechanism for increasing pensions by 6.1% in line with the current rate of inflation and what the Scottish Government are doing with benefits.

It was good to hear the Secretary of State guarantee that if inflation is at 7% or 8% later in the year, at the point when calculations are being made for the purpose of future uprating, pensions will rise by that amount. I hope that the Government stick to that, and it is not just bluster at the Dispatch Box. We all know who pulls the strings; it tends to be the Chancellor, so I hope that the Secretary of State is lobbying the Chancellor, because we know that inflation is not going to go down any time soon.

While I am talking about inadequate measures, let me point out that the £150 rebate on council tax will not catch all pensioner households in terms of bandings; and, as the shadow Secretary of State said, many pensioners living alone or in receipt of pension credit already receive a full or partial council tax discount, and are therefore unlikely to benefit from the new council tax rebate measure unless the Government do something about it. Making others who have avoided debt all their lives take out a £200 loan to pay back later is also morally wrong. That loan should be converted to a grant for all, and certainly, as the bare minimum, for pensioners and those on benefits.

The Secretary of State spoke about the warm home discount, but, as she knows, the Government put no money into that scheme, although too many Ministers do not even understand that; it is actually paid for by other bill payers. While I welcome the extension of the discount to 3 million households, only 10% more pensioners will receive it. The Government should extend it further, but, in doing so, should provide some direct funding rather than imposing the funding on other bill payers. They should also consider extending the energy company obligation scheme so that more homes become energy-efficient, but that too should involve direct funding rather than other bill payers having to foot the bill.

Apart from the £150 funded rebate, the only direct Government intervention to date on energy has been the allocation of £1.7 billion for the development of Sizewell C. Not content with Hinkley Point C being the most expensive power station in the world, the Tories are determined to build another more expensive one. In their own impact assessment for the Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill, the upper estimate of the capital and financing costs of the Sizewell C development is £63 billion. How will that help people who need energy costs to come down? And why did Labour vote to commit bill payers to that amount for a new nuclear power station? The money could be spent so much more wisely. There really needs to be a rethink on this nuclear policy.

There are other cost increases to be considered. For instance, the cost of food is rocketing.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

I note the hon. Gentleman’s opposition to the gaining of low-carbon energy from nuclear. He has also told us that this is an energy-rich country. What does he think the Government should do with the Cambo oilfield? Should we open it up to reduce energy prices for pensioners?

[Alan Brown]

The hon. Gentleman is not comparing like with like. Cambo means more fossil fuel extraction, and there needs to be a proper assessment to establish whether this could be done in a way that is compatible with net zero. That is a test that the Government are refusing to apply. Apart from that, they should be investing much more in floating offshore wind, in tidal stream, in which Scotland leads the world, and in pumped- storage hydro, which is a dispatchable low-carbon technology. That scheme is ready to go, but the Government have not agreed a pricing mechanism. Then there is carbon capture and storage at Peterhead, in which respect Scottish customers have been let down again. So much more could be done in energy, and it would not cover even a portion of that £63 billion that has been allocated to nuclear. More energy efficiency reduces demand, and therefore reduces the need for new power generation. I hope I have answered the hon. Gentleman’s question.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Yes.

[Alan Brown]

Yes!

Returning to fossil fuel, obviously petrol and diesel prices have increased massively at the pump. They have gone up by between 35p and 40p a litre compared with a year ago—a 30% increase. That also means that while people struggle to run their cars, VAT returns to the Treasury have increased massively. The current rates compared with last year mean that the Treasury is getting something like £3 billion a year extra in VAT returns, but that should be recirculated to support hard-pressed people, especially pensioners. It seems that the Chancellor may respond to calls to cut fuel duty, but if he does, he will be demonstrating the folly of a 12-year duty freeze. When we had lower prices, that was the time when bolder action could have been taken to raise fuel duty, so that when fuel prices increased in the way they have, fuel duty could have been decreased. That would have created a much smoother curve, instead of peaks and troughs, and the Treasury would have had a far more stable income as well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

Last Saturday, like many hon. Members across the House, I was undertaking street surgeries and knocking on doors in my constituency. I spoke to several tens of pensioners, and it is absolutely right to say that the cost of living crisis is very much an issue, but it was also noticeable that people understand and recognise the causes of the crisis—the post-covid supply bottlenecks and, increasingly, the price that we all have to pay to support Ukraine and stand up to Russian aggression. I found universal support for the Government’s strong position and recognition that if we do not stand up to President Putin now, we will only make him stronger and ourselves weaker.

Although residents understand the causes, that does not make the cost of living crisis any less real, particularly in rural areas such as mine in Broadland where car transport is a necessity and homes are often heated by oil. People on fixed incomes are most vulnerable to inflation, which is why the Conservative Government over the past decade have done so much to raise pensions from the lows of the last Labour Government. In 2010, Labour spent £70 billion on pensions. The Conservatives have increased that by £35 billion—a 35% increase—while inflation, at 22%, amounts to a 13% real terms increase. Average earnings have been outstripped by pensions growth by 8% during this period. It is the case that state pensions are now at their highest, relative to earnings, for 24 years. It is so different from Labour, famous for its 75p increase in pensions.

Pensions are not just state pensions. Some 88% of all eligible employees are now participating in a private pension. That is not by chance; it is as a direct result of innovative Government policy. Pre auto-enrolment, fewer than 50% of workers benefited from an additional pension. Because of Government intervention an additional £28.4 billion has been saved every year since 2012 and continuing, raising living standards for pensioners of the future.

The Government are not just relying on years of pension increases, but are taking further steps to help pensioners with increased energy costs. We have already heard about the cold weather payment scheme, which provides £25 per cold weather week for those on pension credit, income support, income-based jobseekers’ allowance, income-related employment and support allowance or universal credit.

We have heard about the warm home discount, with an additional payment of £150 increased to 3 million households most in need. We have also heard about a reduction in council tax of £150 this year for council tax bands A to D, and the £200 of delayed payments for energy bills this autumn to help flatten the impact of the spike in energy prices. Then there is £144 million of discretionary fund. The two councils in my patch are considering applying that to oil heating support.

In addition to all those schemes, we know about the pension credits, which are guaranteed to top up weekly income to the equivalent of £9,200 a year. It is very heartening to hear the Government’s strenuous efforts to increase the take-up of that scheme. We have the spring statement later this week. I, like many others, am hopeful that there will be additional assistance with the cost of living, particularly for pensioners and particularly for rural areas, such as the one that I am lucky enough to represent.

I know that the Chancellor will continue to do all he can to support pensioners and others on lower incomes. If he does so, he will be building on a decade of support by Conservative Governments.

British Sign Language Bill

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 18th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate. I too wish to pay tribute to the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper). It is great to sit in this Chamber and learn about things from someone with such enormous experience and expertise. I very much enjoyed listening to her speech introducing this Third Reading debate.

This Bill is important because BSL is important. It is the primary language for up to 90,000 of our fellow citizens and residents of this country and it has up to 150,000 users. It is important to re-emphasise the point that has been made a couple of times today: BSL is not a direct translation of English; it is its own language. We cannot assume that BSL users have equivalent comprehension in English, or in fact any other language. If we ask whether BSL users should have the same right of access to Government services as everyone else, the obvious answer is yes. If we can support access to Government services for BSL users, we should and for that reason, I wholeheartedly welcome the Bill.

The impact of the Bill will be to encourage increased work to promote and facilitate the use of BSL across Government Departments. The heavy lifting is undertaken by clause 2(1) and (2), which place a duty on the Secretary of State to report what progress has been made by the 20 Departments named in the schedule to facilitate and promote the use of BSL.

At first glance, that seems a rather odd way to achieve the desired result, but from my previous career as a businessman, I know full well that we get what we measure. The requirement to measure and thereafter to report every three years as a minimum on the progress that those Government Departments are making will, in effect, be a very good prod to encourage further work. I note in passing that it is a GB-wide Bill. By focusing on GB as opposed to the United Kingdom, it takes account of the sensitivities of communities in Northern Ireland, which is sensible.

Clause 3 requires the Secretary of State to provide guidance to the Departments on how best to promote and facilitate BSL. Every bit as important as that statutory duty is the creation of the non-statutory advisory body, which will provide a voice for BSL users and people with real expertise on how the language is being used in our community. It will give them access to the heart of Government decision making and will give the right kind of advice to the Secretary of State and, by extension, the 20 named Departments.

[Dr Hudson]

I rise to congratulate the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper) on this fantastic Bill about equality of access. It is such an important Bill and I wish it well in the other place. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) that this House is at its best when it unites to right a wrong. That is important. On the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) was making about the requirement for Government Departments to have that guidance given to them, does he agree that the fact that the guidance in the Bill goes across Government will provide equality of access?

[Jerome Mayhew]

I agree with my hon. Friend. The large scope of Departments affected by the Bill—all 20 named in the schedule—shows that its intention, and I hope effect, is to provide the promotion and facilitation of BSL use across the arms of Government.

We need to consider the Bill’s impact on the taxpayer. The assessment is that the financial impact will be almost negligible, because it works on the attitude and focus in Government. It does not require a large expenditure of money; it requires effective use of the approach that Departments take to BSL use. As the hon. Member for West Lancashire made clear in her opening remarks, it is about not thinking of BSL as an also-ran or an afterthought, but applying forethought to every announcement and all the work of Government. It is about taking BSL into account as part of business as usual, not as a secondary consideration.



It is 19 years since BSL was recognised as a language, and I want to take this opportunity to celebrate this further small, but important, step in support for BSL users. David Buxton, British Deaf Association chair, has said:

“Deaf people in Britain never gave up hope that their language would one day be not only recognised in law, but also protected and promoted so that deaf people are finally able to access information and services and achieve their potential on an equal basis with their fellow hearing citizens.”

I am very proud to support the Bill.