Automatic Enrolment: Lower Earnings Limit

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black) on securing this debate, and I thank the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney) for his contribution.

I am a firm believer in workers’ rights, but with Brexit on the horizon, it feels like even the most basic rights are no longer guaranteed or a priority. It speaks volumes that we are having this debate in this Chamber while the Brexit debate takes place in the main Chamber. It is important to recognise where the Government are taking positive action. Although it is not perfect, the attempt at auto-enrolment was one way for the Government to recognise the huge issues with the current pensions system. It has meant that eligible workers are automatically enrolled on a pension scheme, with the employer obliged to pay towards their employee’s pension.

In reality, however, it will allow pensions contributions to be paid at set limits and with set criteria, which the Government have set out in a phased timeline. The Government have made no firm commitments on when exactly the conclusion of that timeline will be, and in reality, it does not quite meet the mark of what is required for people to truly be able to plan for financial retirement.

If the Government were to scrap the lower earnings limit, as my hon. Friend outlined, that would allow pension contributions to be paid from the first pound of every worker’s salary. Currently, employers do not have to include the first £6,032 that an employee earns when calculating pension contributions, so if the Government removed the lower earnings limit, that would mean a significant increase to the employee’s pension pot.

As was outlined earlier, that would account for an extra £2.6 billion a year going into workers’ pensions, including £1 billion more from employers, according to the Government’s own figures. The Government released detailed plans to scrap the lower earnings limit in 2017, but have given only a vague commitment to take action on it in the mid-2020s. When does the Minister envisage that that will happen? 2023? 2024? 2025? 2027? Rather than the vague timescale that the Minister has set out previously, can he give a concrete guarantee about exactly when the lower earnings limit will be scrapped? To put that into perspective, research by the TUC outlines that a six-year delay could cut a saver’s pension pot by £12,000—based on the 2022 figure rather than the 2028 figure—which would make a sizeable difference to the affected individuals.

I will address some of the key flaws and primary concerns of the issue. The lower earnings limit trigger provides eligibility for the auto-enrolment programme. When it was introduced, it was set at £5,035 a year, and then increased to £7,457, which resulted in the exclusion of 600,000 workers, of whom 78% were women. After increases over the years, the earnings trigger was frozen at £10,000 in 2015-16 up to the current period of 2018-19. That resulted in the exclusion of an additional 40,000 workers, of whom 30,000 were women, notwithstanding the fact that increasing the lower earnings limit to £10,000 excluded 170,000 workers, of whom 120,000—69%—were women. I hope that that illustrates to the Minister, who I am sure already knows this, my key concerns—as spokesperson for women and equalities—about the problems this poses for women.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

A whole raft of evidence, relating particularly to young or middle-aged women, shows that the Government are not hitting the mark on these matters. The WASPI women issue has run for many years and, if we consider the last economic crisis, women took the brunt of it: £14 billion was taken from women, through various tax measures, to deal with the crisis. Does the hon. Lady agree that it is about time that something was done about that?

[Angela Crawley]

I wholeheartedly agree. The Government have been remiss in their responsibilities to address those epidemic concerns that have increased during their stewardship in government.

I will turn to the concerns that I have outlined, including those of women, low-paid workers and the WASPI women, on whom the Government have a shambolic record. Low-paid workers, including those who have multiple jobs that do not meet that threshold, are more often than not below the earnings threshold and do not therefore meet the criteria for auto-enrolment. There is no mechanism for auto-enrolment for the self-employed.

Another group of individuals has also been completely forgotten in this programme. There is a duty to enrol for those aged between 22 and the state pension age. Those in the six-year gap between the ages of 16 and 22 will therefore be adversely impacted by that decision. The Government acknowledged that problem, but addressed it by saying that many people in that age group tend to move jobs a lot, so it is not administratively worthwhile to account for them in the programme.

What do the Government say, however, to a young person who goes into a full-time permanent job at 16? Are they not entitled to pension contributions? The UK Government have said that they will lower the age to 18 by the mid-2020s. Can the Minister tell us exactly when that will happen?

The contribution is currently set at £6,032, going up to a threshold of £46,350. That has been on a phased increase since 2012. In reality, the minimum recommendation that is currently estimated for pension savings is 15% to 18%. If the Government were to remove the lower earnings limit, it would add £2.6 billion to the annual pensions pot. That would still account for only 8% of the estimated required pension savings. That means a shortfall of 12%, on average, for each individual of working age in the UK. The Government have to address that.

The Minister himself, however, has admitted that 8% is not a sufficient contribution for a long-term retirement, and the Government’s own figures suggest that approximately 12 million people are under-saving for retirement. I hate to take words out of the Minister’s mouth, but he will probably point to the pensions dashboard to support better planning for retirement. However, for women, low-paid workers, those in multiple low-paid jobs, those aged from 16 to 22 who are in full-time permanent employment, the self-employed, and those on zero-hours contracts who fall below that threshold, can the Government say that they are serving them? For society as a whole, does the existing lower earnings limit sufficiently

“support better planning for retirement”,

to use the Government’s own words? The Government record on WASPI women alone proves that, more often than not, the evidence is that in most instances the most vulnerable in society are an afterthought.

Department for Education

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I did a survey just before and after the 2017 general election. Out of 103 schools in Coventry, 102 were finding increases in class sizes. The cuts measured pupil by pupil amounted to £295. We had a debate yesterday about sex education in schools. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is another burden being loaded on to our schools? We have a situation in Coventry where schools badly need additional funding regardless of what the Government were going to allow because they are starting from a very low basis. In other words, the Government owe education £3.5 billion, despite the fact that they put in £1.5 billion.

[Meg Hillier]

My hon. Friend tees me up for my next point. He also raises an important point. It is a political disease to ask schools to do more all the time and very often assume that it can just be done without the additional funding. It is important that the Secretary of State and his ministerial team watch closely that, while other bits of Government suggest that schools do things, there is the funding in place for that and for the core of what they should be delivering. It was after the general election and as a result of that campaign and that pressure on the Government, who were then elected without a majority, that the Secretary of State announced £1.3 billion of additional funding, which was weighted towards next year. This year, schools are in the throes of receiving the £416 million that was announced for this year and will receive £884 million in aggregate across England for next year. But that—the £3 billion figure—does not even backfill those efficiency demands that were asked for before. It is important that we recognise—in fact, the Government have recognised this—that we need 599,000 school places, which is as a result of the increase between 2010 and 2015. We are very concerned about the pressure on school budgets.

--- Later in debate ---

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Ruth George) for her excellent opening remarks.

The social security system was designed to be a safety net, but it has now become so threadbare and the holes so wide that many people are slipping through it. One key reason is that, although DWP spending has increased since 2010, we are supporting a larger pensioner population. There is also the introduction of universal credit, which replaces the previous system under HMRC. The generosity of many other support payments is decreasing. The changes and cuts to social security add up to savings of £30 billion for the Exchequer this year. That is going to rise to £36 billion in 2021 and £38 billion by the end of 2023-24, and this is in the context of Brexit.

The Government have sought to save money from changes to benefit rules, and we have heard about the freeze. There are the £4.8 billion cuts affecting disabled people; disabled people need that extra support because of the extra costs that they face, but that seems absolutely to have escaped the Government. The other thing is penalising children and children not being supported, as they have been in the past, and, of course, restricting women’s eligibility for the state pension by pushing the state pension age up.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend has to remember that this is against a background of the £12 billion cuts that the present Government fought general elections on. They have no mandate for it, so this all falls into place. However, she raises a very important point that is still a very live issue—women born in the early ’50s being denied their pension. The Government have just shut the door in their faces. I think that it is a disgrace given some of the problems that these women experience now. Some are on the poverty line as a result of all this. Does my hon. Friend not agree?

[Debbie Abrahams]

I totally agree. I have visited my hon. Friend in Coventry and many of the women from the so-called WASPI group who have been campaigning vigorously on this.

Although we did see a welcome increase in spending on UC in last year’s Budget, at the same time, the disability benefits and benefits for carers went down. Even though there were changes to universal credit last autumn, 3 million people will still be worse off under universal credit. Nine out of 10 low-income disabled households will not benefit from the Budget increases, alongside 640,000 self-employed households and 475,000 working lone-parent households. The effects of these social security cuts in the context of a rising cost of living are there for everyone to see. We have heard about the rise and rise of food banks. I never had a food bank in Oldham until this Government came in.

There has been the increase in personal debt and rent arrears. Eight million—the highest level ever—working households are in poverty. Two thirds of the 4.1 million children living in poverty are from working households. Four million sick and disabled people are living in poverty. Over 300,000 more older people are living in poverty since 2010. Our life expectancy is stalling—this is in the context of an increasing state pension age—and infant mortality, for the first time in 100 years, is increasing. Four babies in 1,000 will not see their first birthday.

The austerity agenda has not helped the economy one iota. Analysis used in the Office for Budget Responsibility’s model has shown that the independent effects of austerity have been to stifle economic growth by at least £100 billion in the last year alone—that is £3,600 per household. However, it is not just about that—the human toll as a result of these cuts cannot be underestimated.

Last week, we heard about Jodey, who took her own life after she was found fit for work following her work capability assessment. The DWP failed five times to follow its safeguarding rules in the weeks leading up to Jodey’s suicide, although it knew that she had a history of mental health issues. We learnt about 52-year-old Jeff, who won his appeal against his work capability assessment saying he was fit for work seven months after he had died. A few days earlier, we heard about 64-year-old Stephen Smith, whose emaciated six-stone body was photographed by the Liverpool Echo in a hospital bed. He had also been found fit for work. In my Oldham East and Saddleworth constituency, one of the worst cases I ever had involved a man who had a brain tumour. He was refusing to have the life-saving surgery that he needed because he was scared that he was going to get sanctioned. His medical team contacted me, pleading with me to intervene on his behalf.

I have a whole list here of different constituents and the struggles that they have had with the DWP, whether that is with PIP, the work capability assessment or UC. I want to particularly thank my team for the work they have done; without them, I could not do my job.

We are the sixth richest country in the world, and it is reprehensible for us to treat our citizens in this way. We must never forget that, like the NHS, our social security system should be there for all of us in our time of need, providing security and dignity in retirement and the support needed should we become sick or disabled or fall on hard times. It is a vital weapon in our fight against poverty and inequality—and one of which we should be proud, not ashamed.

Employment and Support Allowance: Underpayments

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, but it does not sound as though that particular case relates to what we are discussing today. Clearly anyone who needs support should receive that support. The person the hon. Gentleman describes will now be claiming universal credit, and the huge benefit of universal credit is that that young man will have a relationship with his work coach, and they can work together to make sure he is getting all the support that he needs.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Many of my constituents fall into debt through arrears of payments, whether of universal credit or of other benefits, particularly PIPs. Can we not reduce the waiting time for people on universal credit from five weeks to two weeks, or even a week, because some of them are in destitute situations?

[Sarah Newton]

If people have not got any money and are destitute in the way that the hon. Gentleman describes, they need to go to their jobcentre and speak to their work coach. They can be signed up to universal credit and go away with an advance on the same day. I wholeheartedly agree with the more general point about making sure that we make the right decision the first time so that people are not delayed by going through mandatory reconsideration and appeals, and that is what we are working to do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

We believe that it is a positive step in the light of the review that took place. I draw my hon. Friend’s attention to the Breathing Space scheme that is being introduced by Her Majesty’s Treasury to assist people on an ongoing basis. That scheme came in in the legislation that we introduced last year.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Why does the Minister not stop universal credit until such time as the Government get the result of the pilot scheme? Anywhere else, if people have a pilot scheme, they wait to implement it and learn the results from it before rolling the system out. You would do that in the private sector. Why not do it here?

[Guy Opperman]

With respect, the answer is twofold. First, there has been a gradual introduction of universal credit and, secondly, the pilot scheme is in respect of managed migration.

Pensions Dashboard

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Dr Offord]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. I certainly would like to see that across a range of financial instruments. Recently, I was required to find the level of my ISA trust fund. In the past I would receive a statement only every six months, but nowadays I can go online and use my PIN to verify my identity and see my daily amount. I can see the value of my trust fund here today. When I say trust fund, I mean the one I have paid into over the years, rather than one that was provided by my parents.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. Like me, he has probably had a large number of constituents write to him wanting the dashboard to be as simple and clear as possible, and to contain as much information as it can. Would he agree that the Minister should look at that, so we get a sensible system that people actually understand?

[Dr Offord]

I believe that proposal is a good one, but whether it is looked at by the Minister or the steering group—I will come on to that—is another matter. As the debate unfolds, perhaps some of those questions will be answered. I always say that the dashboard should be made as simple as possible, so that people can engage with their pensions and their future, which is a good thing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Offord]

That is a very important point. Unfortunately, I am not a Minister, but the debate provides the opportunity to put that question to the Minister. Perhaps the Minister in summing up will provide the reassurances that the hon. Gentleman seeks.

Once again, the hon. Gentleman seems to have pre-empted my speech, because I was about to name him and thank him for coming along. I was going to say that it is very pleasing that the proposal has cross-party support, and that I welcome his support and attendance, along with that of my hon. Friends the Members for North Warwickshire (Craig Tracey), for Solihull (Julian Knight) and for Henley (John Howell).

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

What about me? [Laughter.]

[Dr Offord]

Of course, if I had had any forward notice I would have thanked the hon. Gentleman as well. I am particularly pleased to see the SNP here, because the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) signalled his approval for the social security statutory instruments we debated on Monday, so I thank him and the SNP for that.

From the comments I have heard from the Opposition today, I understand that the proposal that we are debating is not only welcome, but something that all parties are agreed on. With that support, the Government have already engaged in a consultation about how the pensions industry can create the dashboards. In the absence of a clear industry lead, it is proposed by my hon. Friend the Minister that a new single financial guidance body should be convened to oversee an industry delivery group to enable successful implementation.

As I see it, there are two issues that some hon. Members or people outside the Chamber may be concerned about. The first is whether the pensions dashboard should be held in public or private ownership. Like some other hon. Members, I have a Merseyside pension scheme from my time of employment in local government, and as a result I would prefer the dashboard to be in private ownership. Merseyside is notoriously difficult to engage with and refuses to discuss its scheme with organisations or the financial advisers that I have had over the years. However, I acknowledge support for the provision of a non-commercial dashboard supported by the Government; some hon. Members may also agree with that.

The Department for Work and Pensions research has built on the recommendation of the pensions dashboard project that a non-commercial service, endorsed by the Government, must be made available. As key stakeholders have commented, multiple dashboards in the private sector would complement a Government-sponsored offer, which should still be available for those who would prefer it, or who may not be targeted by the market.

It was suggested by the pensions dashboard project group—and, earlier last year, by the Work and Pensions Committee—that the single financial guidance body, which launched services to the public last month, would be a sensible place to host such a dashboard. The industry delivery group will need to consider how best to implement commercial dashboards alongside the non-commercial one. Which? magazine and others across the industry have suggested that a gradual expansion, starting with a single, non-commercial dashboard, is likely to reduce the potential for confusion and help to establish consumer trust.

The second issue of contention is that passing the pensions dashboards on to the private sector will mean that there is no guarantee of compliance from all providers, and will centralise huge amounts of financial information for the private sector to access. In answer to that, I say that in developing the infrastructure for pensions dashboards, industry must adhere to the rights of the individual and principles as set out in the Data Protection Act 2018, which reflects the general data protection regulation. That includes the individual’s right to data portability and principles of accuracy, storage, access and security. There would be no aggregation of the user’s information in the storing of the data in any of the components in the dashboard’s ecosystem, other than by the pension scheme or an integrated service provider operating on behalf of the provider. That supports the overarching delivery principles of keeping data secure and putting the individual in control of their data. Access to the data would be available only to the user unless specific consent is given—that goes back to my point about Merseyside. Dashboard operators would not be allowed to access the data for any purpose unless they had the specific consent of the user.

I anticipate that the delivery group, working with the regulators, will seek to agree data standards for pension providers and dashboards. Those data standards will need to support whatever level of functionality is required through different phases of implementation and ongoing development of the dashboard service. The pensions dashboard is so important because of the number of people who have now invested in their own pension pot. In the five years from 2012, the percentage of eligible employees participating in a workplace pension rose from 55% to 84%.

Mental Health: Assessment

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Angela Crawley]

I would like to make some progress first.

I am grateful to everyone who contacted me and took the time to comment, both on Facebook and through email, especially those who were brave enough to come forward and share their story. It is vital, given the needs of people with mental health issues, that the Government take time to listen to them.

Over the past few years there have been a great many public understanding and national awareness campaigns on mental health. Where mental health was once kept a secret from family, friends and colleagues, more and more people feel able to come forward and openly discuss their experiences of mental illness and get the necessary help. That recognition is largely due to the tireless work of national campaigns such as the Scottish Association for Mental Health, Mind and many others.

On 10 October last year, the Prime Minister held a reception to celebrate World Mental Health Day and to make a policy announcement, which included the creation of a Minister for suicide prevention. The Prime Minister said,

“we are not looking after our health if we are not looking after our mental health...we need that true parity between physical and mental health, not just in our health systems but elsewhere as well—in our classrooms, our workplaces, in our communities too.”

I agree with all of those points, but I would add that one of the biggest and most positive changes would be parity of esteem between mental and physical health in Government Departments themselves. That would be the place to start.

The highest number of people who seek my support are those who have been denied access or assistance by the Department for Work and Pensions. A common theme of the complaints I hear is that the constituent’s mental health needs have been ignored during work capability assessments for universal credit, employment support allowance and the personal independence payment. Most of those people have a genuine claim and have been incorrectly assessed. That is because the majority of decisions brought to me are ultimately overturned at the mandatory reconsideration and appeals stage.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate. On Friday night I met a number of people with mental health problems. Their issue is that the doctor says that they are not fit to work, but the benefits assessor says that they are, which leaves them in limbo. It is also a problem that employers do not always recognise mental illness. Does the hon. Lady agree that the Minister should do something about that?

[Angela Crawley]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and I am sorry that I did not take it earlier. Each and every day, our constituency offices deal with situations where there has been an issue with the Department for Work and Pensions. It is our staff who work day in, day out to get those decisions overturned. If we have to do that, and if decisions are being repeatedly overturned, there is obviously a flaw in the system.

Disability Support

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House calls on the Government to commission an independent assessment of the cumulative impact of changes to the social security system on sick and disabled people and their families and carers.

It has been a long day for everybody, but I appreciate the fact that we are able to hold this debate, as it is so important to the millions of disabled people, many of whom will be watching today. We applied to the Backbench Business Committee for this debate back in June, and I am grateful to the Committee’s members for supporting this debate, but in six months a lot has marched on.

Let me refresh everybody’s memories. Back in 2013, nearly 105,000 people signed a petition launched by the War On Welfare campaign—WOW, for short—that called on the Government to carry out a cumulative impact assessment of the effect of Government cuts on disabled people. Back in February 2014, we held that debate, and Members from all parties raised the alarm about the cumulative effects of austerity on disabled people. Disappointingly, the Government’s response at the time was to deny that the public spending cuts—not only in social security but across other Government Departments—were having such a detrimental impact on disabled people. They also said that cumulative impact assessment methodology was very difficult. At that time, Scope and Demos estimated that the cumulative effects of the changes in the Welfare Reform Act 2012 alone amounted to £28 billion-worth of cuts for 3.7 million people.

It is abundantly clear from the numerous inquiries, reports and analyses, as well as from the personal testimonies of disabled people themselves, that austerity is doing immense harm to disabled people and their families and carers. I shall expand on that in a moment, but first I wish to clarify exactly what a cumulative impact assessment—or a CIA; it is a mouthful to keep saying that every time—is. A CIA involves various methods and processes to assess the overall effect of a set of changes—for example, Government policies such as tax or welfare reforms—on a particular population, which in this case is disabled people. The assessment can not only quantify the impacts—for example, by looking at the net changes in income—but use qualitative methods to understand how the policy changes affect disabled people or other groups. As whole, impact assessments are decision-making tools. They should inform policy development based on the evidence and findings that the assessments present. They can also be used retrospectively. The power of CIAs is that they consider a number of policies together to see how they affect each other.

I believe passionately in evidence-based policy. Too often, it is the other way around: policy-based evidence—we select the evidence that suits the policies that we want. CIAs can help to avoid that. For me, they are an essential component of open and transparent policy making. If a politician says, for example, that they want to tackle burning injustices in society, CIAs will say whether or not a policy programme can achieve that. They are therefore also a way to hold politicians to account.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

We should bear it in mind that the Government, at least at the two most recent general elections, wanted to save about £12 billion from the welfare budget, so all these systems are geared towards that end. That is why we have major problems with universal credit. For people with disabilities, there are issues with the independent living allowance, which really unsettled a lot of families, to say the least. More importantly, every so often a person with disabilities is subject to a review, which causes great anxiety, and in some instances leads to mental stress and strain. It is not a very fair system, and the private sector should not be involved because at the end of the day it is very much about saving money.

[Debbie Abrahams]

Yes, and I shall come to exactly some of the points my hon. Friend raised. He managed to get quite a bit into that intervention.

What CIAs have been done so far? Back in March this year, the Equality and Human Rights Commission published its report on the cumulative impact of tax and welfare reforms. The report looked at the effect, since 2010, of tax, welfare, social security and public spending on people with protected characteristics as set out in the Equality Act 2010. It included assessments of the impact on disabled people. The EHRC looked at the measures introduced in both the 2012 Act and the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016, including the move to personal independence payments from disability living allowance; the cuts in support to the employment and support allowance work-related activity group; the introduction of universal credit, which involved the removal of the severe and enhanced disability premiums; the freeze in the uprating of social security support payments; and more. The EHRC analysis found that, by 2021, households with at least one disabled adult and a disabled child will lose more than £6,500 a year—that is 13% of their income. Households with six or more disabilities lose almost £3,150 a year, and disabled lone parents, predominantly women, with at least one disabled child lose almost £10,000 of their net income.

Universal Credit and Child Tax Credit: Two-child Limit

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 27th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Alison Thewliss]

I absolutely agree. It breaks the link between need and what somebody receives. These families are no less in need, but their money is being cut.

It is impossible for just about anyone, other than the super-rich and perhaps the royal family, to make plans in the way I described. The UK Tory Government are hacking away at the safety net that a social security system ought to be.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. Women are carrying the brunt of austerity—let us be frank about that—whether we are talking about nursery provision, tax credits or the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign. The list is endless. Women have made a major contribution in terms of austerity, in the sense that they have carried the burden of the £14 billion of tax adjustments. It is the same with the WASPI women and the savings that have been made on their pensions.

[Alison Thewliss]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. The Womens Budget Group has found that 86% of welfare cuts have come out of women’s pockets. The Government are taking a gendered and targeted approach, and they should be wary of that.

State Pension: Women born in the 1950s

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered state pension equalisation for women born in the 1950s.

I stand today feeling the weight of despair, the burning sense of injustice and the genuine bewilderment felt by the women who, by sheer bad luck, were born in the 1950s and thereby inexplicably became fair game to be robbed, mugged and made the victims of theft of the most cruel and callous kind. For some women, that theft can be of up to £40,000 in lost pension. A large number of MPs—too many to mention—who support the Women Against State Pension Inequality in their quest for justice sent messages asking me to convey their support despite their absence. Many colleagues across the House dearly wanted to speak in the debate but were unable to attend.

In my lifetime, this could be the most unjust Government policy since the poll tax. It affects 3.8 million women, and 4,800 women in my constituency. The acceleration of the timetable set out in the Pensions Act 1995 has meant that these women have faced changes to the pension age abruptly, with little or no time to adapt and prepare. These women have had their pensions stolen from them—it is as simple as that. They paid into their pensions through a lifetime of work, raising their families, and often acting as carers for other members of their families. They did all the right things, only to be told, when it came time for them to be paid, that the rules of the game had changed. Not only that, but no one had thought to tell them that the rules of the game had changed—and that was just bad luck.

In addition, lower wages and broken employment periods mean that many of these women do not have a full national insurance record, so they receive lower state pensions than men anyway. Indeed, the average woman receives about 82% of what a man receives in his state pension. They also have a fraction of the savings of men. Equalisation is not just about the age at which people reach retirement.

With no time to make alternative plans, many women are suffering, and many are now living in poverty as a direct result of the political choice not to give them their due. Only last week, Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, concluded that after decades of decline we are now witnessing a rise in pensioner poverty, with the figure rising in recent years by 300,000. He went on to say that

“a group of women born in the 1950s have been particularly impacted by an abrupt and poorly phased in change in the state pension age from 60 to 66.”

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Patricia Gibson]

I will just finish the quotation from the rapporteur. He continued:

“The impact of the changes to pensionable age is such as to severely penalize those who happen to be on the cusp of retirement and who had well-founded expectations of entering the next phase of their lives, rather than being plunged back into a workforce for which many of them were ill-prepared and to which they could not reasonably have been expected to adjust with no notice.”

I would be keen to hear the Minister’s response to the rapporteur’s words. If he wishes to intervene to rebut them, I would be delighted to give way, but in the absence of his seeking to intervene, I will take an intervention from the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham).

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The next best thing!

[Mr Cunningham]

I do not know about that. I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this timely debate. We have had many such debates, but the Government do not seem to get the message. From the start of the recession until now, women have carried the burden of the recession. In tax adjustments, the Government saved something like £14 billion at the expense of women. The amount the Government are saving through not doing the right thing by these women probably runs into billions. A fraction of those billions could take care of the problem.

[Patricia Gibson]

The hon. Gentleman makes his point well. It was recently said to me that it was interesting that the Government have chosen to pick a fight with women of a certain age, with a policy that will most harshly affect women in a lower income bracket. They will feel the most pain as a result of the policy, and were perhaps considered an easy target. Perhaps the Minister has views on that.

I have participated in every debate on the WASPI women since I was elected, and I repeatedly hear from whoever is responding for the Government—a variety of Ministers have done so—that the policy is about us all living longer. However, the debate is not about life expectancy, although we know that that has stalled; it is about women who had their pension age changed with little or no notice, directly causing considerable hardship.

Universal Credit

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Greenwood]

I will make some progress and then I will take some interventions.

For more than a year now, Opposition Members have been calling on the Government to address the policy’s many flaws. I am talking about: the insistence on digital by default when many people trying to make a claim are either not able to use IT or do not have access to it; the monthly payment in arrears when so many people on low incomes are used to being paid fortnightly or even weekly; its inability to cope with fluctuating income that is part and parcel of life on low-paid, insecure work or self-employment; and the payment to a single person in a household that can make it more difficult for someone suffering domestic violence to leave an abusive relationship.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. Does she agree, first, that we should call a halt to this process; secondly, that many people have been driven into the hands of money lenders; thirdly, that many people have found themselves in rent arrears; and, fourthly, that usage of food banks has gone up as a result of this policy?

[Margaret Greenwood]

My hon. Friend makes a number of pertinent points. He is absolutely right to call on the Government to halt the roll-out of universal credit.

Other flaws include: the online journal in which people have to record the jobs that they have spent 35 hours a week applying for, but which work coaches often struggle to find the time to monitor; and the five-week wait for a payment at the start of a claim. According to the latest Government figures, 17% of claims were not paid in full and on time, and one person in 10 did not receive any payment at all. Groups such as carers or parents who need help with childcare are more likely than others to have to wait for their first payment. The latest figures show that only a third of people who are ill or disabled were paid on time.