Personal Independence Payments

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Clarke]

I know why my hon. Friend feels so passionate, and the experience that he has shared with us is reflected in the views expressed in the report that I am asking the House to consider.

Another example I can give is of an individual who has serious health issues and who last year was diagnosed with throat cancer. He has been waiting for an appointment with Atos to be assessed for PIP. Due to the length of time that his processing is taking, he is now in a great deal of financial difficulty, with rent and council tax arrears of almost £2,600, despite his wife working full-time.

As we all know, PIP is an important passport to many other benefits, such as carer’s allowance, disability premiums, the mobility scheme, concessionary travel schemes, etc. It is indeed a lifeline for people who could not afford to leave the house otherwise and it is a vital part of their personal finances. It cannot be right that many of them face ruin and destitution while they are waiting for their claim to be processed.

This extreme financial hardship has caused a number of individuals to rely on handouts from friends and food banks, and on the accumulation of debt to an unsustainable degree. I know of an individual who has been waiting for an assessment since November 2013, but now his income has been so reduced that he cannot travel to appointments; if he pays for transport, he cannot top up his electricity meter. He has post-traumatic stress disorder and his current situation is resulting in his becoming more withdrawn and reluctant to request help. His mental health is deteriorating as a result. He has worked his entire life and in his 50s is a first-time claimant.

In Coatbridge, which is in my constituency, on 1 April there were 82 PIP applications for daily living claims and 160 mobility claims. I checked with Coatbridge CAB this morning and discovered that all these claims are lying in the in-tray of Atos or DWP and not being brought to a conclusion. I also clarified the position of the CAB in Bellshill, which is also in my constituency. It is handling a PIP claim that has been pending for 10 months.

My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) tells me that there are similar problems in his city, and on that point I will give way.

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

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way and I congratulate him on securing a welcome and—in many ways—a well-timed debate. He has just described what we are experiencing in Coventry, including sloppy paperwork and long delays in receiving benefits, especially the earnings supplement, which is claimed by 25% of the claimants in Coventry. CAB time is taken up with that.

We see the same if we look at matters nationally. About 75,000 people are affected nationally, so what is happening in Scotland is also happening in Coventry and the rest of England. I do not want to repeat what my hon. Friend has said. Despite that, we should congratulate the city of Coventry, because it is trying to get on top of what is, quite frankly, an overwhelming problem. This whole facility—the entire benefits system—must be looked at now, because it seems to be a shambles.

[Mr Clarke]

I am glad that my hon. Friend intervened to underline my assertion that problems exist throughout the whole United Kingdom.

The truth is that the picture is depressing, and it is not as if the Department for Work and Pensions has not been warned. The National Audit Office, which published a report in February 2014 entitled “Personal Independence Payment: early progress”, investigated the performance of the DWP as it introduced PIP. It found that

“the Department did not allow enough time to test whether the assessment process could handle large numbers of claims. As a result of this poor early operational performance, claimants face long and uncertain delays and the Department has had to delay the wider roll-out of the programme.”

The Department anticipated that it would take 74 days to decide on a claim, but the actual average wait is 107 days. For terminally ill claimants—I underline “terminally ill”—the process was taking 28 days on average against a departmental assumption of 10 days. That represents a wholly unrealistic assumption of the capacities of both the Department for Work and Pensions and Atos in Scotland. The end result is a system that would not work on paper, clearly does not work in practice and is further straining claimants’ finances and health.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge), the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said in response to the NAO report:

“The Department need to understand the causes of this backlog to develop a clear plan on how they are going to work with contractors to clear it, and ensure there are suitable processes in place to make sure this does not happen again.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

Okay. On other passporting issues, blue badges can be issued without PIP being in payment, so if someone is not getting PIP, it does not mean that they cannot get a blue badge. NHS help with travel expenses and prescriptions is based on the receipt of income-related benefits. Local authorities are able to provide social care or help with adaptations on the basis of their assessments, and they should not exclude people just because they are not entitled to the personal independence payment.

In the couple of minutes remaining, I shall say a little more about claims relating to those who are terminally ill. In addition to the things that I have mentioned, we have put in place a dedicated phone service for such claims, as well as an electronic form so that the medical information we require from GPs and consultants can get to the Department as quickly as possible. As I said, we are now achieving the performance that we would want from the Department, so we have made progress in that area.

I understand the frustrations that people have experienced. There have been cases in my constituency of people waiting too long. I have been frank about that, and my top priority is to improve that situation. We are making progress and moving in the right direction, and we will hit the Secretary of State’s commitment by the end of the year—I give the right hon. Gentleman my assurance about that. I have clearly set out that we are spending more money on supporting those on DLA and PIP in every year of this Parliament compared with the year we came to office. It is not the case that we are dealing with the deficit off the backs of disabled people, and I want to ensure that the customer experience is improved.

The right hon. Gentleman talked about an independent review. He will know that Paul Gray has been appointed to carry out the first independent review. He has taken evidence from a range of people involved in this benefit. He is due to provide his report, which the Department will publish, by the end of the year. It will set out, according to his terms of reference, information about the quality of assessments, how the providers are performing and whether the assessments are correctly putting people into the right categories.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Harper]

So long as the hon. Gentleman is very quick, as we have 35 seconds left.

[Mr Cunningham]

I will be as quick as I can. On the 75,000 claims waiting to be assessed, what progress has been made in England? The Minister has talked about Scotland, but what about England, where there are similar problems?

[Mr Harper]

I recognise that the hon. Gentleman represents an English constituency, as I do. We are making progress in England. By focusing on Scotland, I was not trying to say that that is the only place where we are making progress, as we are making progress across Great Britain. I was simply making the point to the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill that the performance in Scotland is better than it is elsewhere in Great Britain, and I hope that what I have said will reassure constituents.

Affordable Homes Bill

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Friday 5th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Andrew George]

There is nothing on this issue that I have withheld from the public domain. Indeed, I have already said to the House that in its original form the Bill contained a wider range of measures, particularly in the clauses that I have mentioned, and I had a number of other proposals that I wanted to discuss with Members. The whole purpose of the Committee stage of a Bill is to consider whether there is further evidence that might advance the case. This is, in any case, a developing area of policy, and it develops on the basis of the evidence. I have long had a deep concern about it, and all I seek to do is ensure that the Government get it right.

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

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

rose—

[Andrew George]

I shall give way first to the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) and then to the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown).

[Mr Cunningham]

The hon. Gentleman has been consistent on the subject of this Bill—let us be quite clear about that. Does he agree that the Government’s measures placed a burden on the needy and disabled in this country, and the chickens are now coming home to roost for the Government?

[Andrew George]

I assume that that remark is directed at those who sit on the Front Bench today.

I want to make a further point about the evidence from the interim evaluation. It is clear that total rent arrears held by landlords increased by 14% in the first six months, and the National Housing Federation says that two thirds—67%—of affected tenants are finding it difficult to afford to pay the rent, compared with less than a third of non-affected tenants. Affected tenants are four times more likely to say that they need to borrow money and therefore go into further debt than they were before 1 April 2013, when the measures were introduced. The evidence that is now available helps us, and I certainly hope that it helps the Government, to consider how best to respond to the issue. That is why I strongly urge all Members of the House to support the Second Reading of the Bill.

Universal Credit

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Commons Chamber

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

The previous Conservative Government had form in this area, particularly in relation to benefits, although my hon. Friend probably was not in the House at the time. We heard a lot of ballyhoo about the horizon project, but at the end of the day it cost billions to put right. Again, it was the people on benefits who suffered as a result. The Conservatives have form. They come up with all sorts of excuses over the years, and claim to be compassionate. They are not. We have only to look at people with disabilities, who still have to go through medical tests.

[Debbie Abrahams]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. No, I was not in the House at that time. We recognise that we did not get everything right either—I am sure there will be an intervention about that—but this Government and this Secretary of State are now in power. It is their programme that we are scrutinising and it is a categorical failure. It is a mess. I have spoken about the waste of money. The Major Projects Authority said that there have been so many changes to universal credit that it cannot be seen as the same project: it must be seen as a new project.

As I said last week, and as was mentioned also by the Chair of the Select Committee, we started off with four pathfinders, including one in my constituency, Oldham. Those were announced in 2011 and were meant to be followed by a national roll-out in October 2013. On the day that the Secretary of State was supposed to provide evidence to the Select Committee, we learned that there was not to be a roll-out. Again, he was very indignant that we were questioning him about that. It was appalling arrogance.

As we have heard, there are supposed to be 7.7 million people on universal credit when it is fully implemented. Currently about 6,000 people are on it. The Secretary of State thought it was highly amusing when I asked him last week how long it would take at the present rate for 1 million people to be on UC. It is a matter of simple maths. Perhaps he, like the Chancellor, has problems with that. The answer is 2091. The Secretary of State did not like answering that.

Last September the National Audit Office reported IT problems that the Government had known about for 18 months but had failed to tell us about. That is deceptive and dishonourable. Some £40 million spent on software has had to be written off and a further £91 million written down. Good money is being poured after bad as the Government continue to spend £37 million to £38 million on the old IT system, while at the same time spending extensive sums on an end-state solution or, as it is now called, enhanced digital—whatever.

In addition to saying that it was now treating universal credit as a new project, the MPA, together with the NAO, reported its concerns on significant issues of governance, transparency, financial controls over supplier spending, and ineffective departmental oversight. It could not get worse. How is the Secretary of State still in his job? In any other profession, he would have gone. Why is he still there?

We supported and still support the principles of a simplified benefits system and one that makes work pay, but whether that will happen is questionable. There is real concern that the aim of making work pay will not be achieved. Recent evidence has shown that by 2018 cuts to the basic and work allowances will mean that universal credit is £685 a year less generous for a lone parent with two children, saving the Government £1.7 billion a year. There are also concerns that UC will weaken the incentive for second earners in couples to work. One in five children in poverty now lives with a single-earner couple. Ensuring that more second earners, principally women, are able to take up employment will be critical to reducing child poverty rates. Finally, the decision to leave council tax support out of universal credit means that the aim of simplicity is being undermined, with many claimants facing two rates of benefit withdrawal when they move into work or when their income increases.

The introduction of universal credit has been a car crash—a demonstration of how not to implement policy and of how the policy intention of making work pay is failing. This Government and this Secretary of State are failing to reform our welfare system. Of course, we need to make sure that welfare spending is not profligate, but in reforming our welfare system so that it is fit for the 21st century, we must remember why we developed our model of social welfare, retaining its principles of inclusion, support and security for all, protecting any one of us should we fall on hard times or become sick or disabled. It is a hand-up, not a hand-out.

Fairness in Pension Provision

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 8th April 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Brian H. Donohoe (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)]

It is good to see you in your place, Mrs Riordan. You, too, have a great interest in pensions, in the fairness of the system and in applying that fairness.

Since I was a very young person, I have always accepted that pension provision is part of deferred income and should be treated by employers and Government as such. All my life, I have believed that fairness should be applied to the whole question of pensions. At the bottom of this debate in many respects, however, is the unfairness in the application of the state pension scheme over a great number of years. I commend the Government for some of the changes to the scheme, making it much simpler than it was, but there is still a long way to go in terms of how we see the future for some elements of the situation. I will cover that later.

I come before the Chamber mainly because of the many constituents who came to see me to complain about the system. None of the three I will mention is after anything for themselves. They all accept that they are at an age when nothing further can be done for them, but by making themselves available to public scrutiny they want to help and protect those who follow to have a more level playing field.

I want to talk first about Ann Aitken, a constituent of mine for some time. She, as well as the other two, has worked since she was 15. She worked for ICI locally in various jobs, and then went to a knitwear company. She took five years off employment to bring up her first child and afterwards worked in shops and factories, before going to a local computer company, Fullerton Fabrication. Since then, she has worked in Crown Paints for some 22 years. She retires this Thursday, so I congratulate her.

Ann wants to bring to the attention of the House what she sees as an anomaly. Over that whole period, she never put her hand out for any form of Government assistance, other than the credits available for the times off she took. That would be in connection with the additional state pension. She is a friendly person and, from talking to her friends, has discovered that her additional state pension is less than that of someone who has never worked. She receives something like £16.22 for the additional state pension, while others she knows receive £21. Although she took five years off, she got no tax credits, because no such thing existed, yet she is now facing the penalty. She has a simple question: what reward was there for her working? What reward has she had for all the years that she has given? She hopes that her situation will not be repeated in future. That is what Ann is concerned about and why she has raised the issue with me.

The second person I want to talk about is Jean Dickson, another constituent who has come to me about her position. She worked from the age of 15, for all her days. Sadly, she lost her husband in 1998, and was grateful for the widow’s pension she received as a consequence, but she has worked all her days, even taking five years out to improve her educational standards. Latterly, she was employed as a nurse in an acute surgical area of the hospital. She, too, says, “Look, I have a state pension, and I am very grateful for it”, and it will be £566 per month. In addition, because of the occupational pension, she is receiving £240 per month before tax. As a result of her husband having a pension, she receives another £300 per year. As a consequence of the unfairness that I will cover in the latter stages of my presentation, she receives £166 per annum for the state earnings-related pension scheme, SERPS. In her last job, she paid 6.5% of her pay towards superannuation, so she still feels that there is injustice in her situation. She retired in October 2012, but is being penalised for working all her days, compared with those who perhaps were not.

The third case is that of Lawrence Clark, who came to see me and whose case particularly caught my imagination. He started working at the age of 15, similarly to people such as myself and my colleagues—he is of our age group. He started as a trainee accountant at Hyster, a local company, and went on to work for various companies, including Simpson Turner as a toolmaker. He moved on to Wilson Sporting Goods, another local company, where he worked for 25-odd years. He then worked for Digital, a local company that went bust, and for Scottish Golf Cast, which again lasted a few months. He ended up at the charity Quarriers for 15 years.

After that working life, he has managed to accrue £97 a month from his Wilson Sporting Goods occupational pension and £223 as a consequence of his work at Quarriers. In addition to that, on the basis of advice he received—another point I want to address in my conclusion—he paid towards a private pension that gives him something like £14 a month. From November 2015 he is going to receive a state pension of £123 a week. He is saying that, after 47 years, as a consequence of all that, as well as of being unemployed—if that is the right terminology for him—up until that point next November, he gets £60 a week for his pension credit guarantee, whereas others are apparently receiving £140. If he had not paid something like £30,000 into a superannuation scheme, he believes that he would currently be better off per week until he retires. That seems very unfair, and it should be looked at. He thinks that, had he not taken out a private pension or been involved in superannuation, he would have been better off. That is the unfairness that those three constituents believe they face.

I have outlined three cases in which there are problems with the pension provision directly, but we can also compare other aspects of the life they have lived with those of other people. Others have had free dentistry, free prescriptions for glasses, and housing benefit has been part of their scheme. The situation may have changed in Scotland now, but some people had to pay for their prescriptions all their lives. I am not saying for a minute that it is wrong that unemployed individuals are receiving these elements, but those three constituents say that perhaps more concern should be given to how they deal with the situation and how the Government deal with their problems.

On that basis, I want to broaden the argument. That is the difficulty for each of those individuals, but the position is more general too. The problem is that the great mass of people in this country do not have a clue, when they are aged 25, 35 or 55, about what provision they are making. They do not know what the result of their contributions will be for their pension. This issue has plagued me over the years, and it still does. Even here in the House, there are hundreds of Members of Parliament who do not have a clue what their pension provision is, and I say that as someone responsible for trying to educate them about that. It is clear that there must be a fundamental shift—information must be provided to every individual in this country to make them aware of the provision and advice available.

I commend the Government, because at the very least, and on the basis of all-party agreement, we now have financial advisers who are independent—in every sense of the word—in the advice they are giving. It used to be that financial advisers worked for companies on commission. The same individuals now charge for their services. That, at the very least, is a bit fairer, or gives the impression of being fairer.

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

I certainly remember the early ’80s when people were encouraged to take out a private pension, but unless they worked for a reputable company it was not explained how a private pension could sometimes affect the state pension. There must be thousands of people in that situation in this country. Whatever my views about the Government’s pension proposals, at least they will explain them to people. When I worked at Rolls-Royce, it spent a lot of money trying to persuade us away from the state pension to a private pension scheme and to some extent we got reasonable advice, but I can think of other car companies in the Coventry area where even today there are still problems with pensions.

[Mr Donohoe]

My hon. Friend has focused on an issue that was dear to my heart and about which I argued forcefully when a previous Administration allowed people to contract out of their company’s superannuation scheme. I was a joint secretary of the Scottish Transport Group when, for the first time in about 1982, people were given the opportunity of opting out of its pension fund and going private. I argued forcefully with everyone and anyone that that was a big mistake, that they were leaving themselves open and that when they eventually retired they would find themselves in a different situation. We had what was recognised at the time to be the best pension scheme—perhaps not as good as that for MPs, but certainly a very good pension scheme. Some people are now in a worse position because they were pounced on by supposedly independent financial advisers who told them that they would be far better off in a private scheme, when the truth was the exact opposite.

Many years ago, I was a convener and shop steward in a shipyard where the blue-collar workers were not in a pension scheme. I argued with the employer and succeeded in persuading them to introduce a scheme. That company is still in my constituency and I still have people telling me, some 40 years later, that it was the best thing that was ever done and that they have never been better off after taking advice and voting overwhelmingly to join that scheme. I do not know whether I am an anorak in terms of pensions, but I believe that making provision for a pension is more important than anything else in life. People should understand that, and do so earlier.

I seek clarification on one or two points, but I want to make a plea to the Minister. How widely defined are “employees” and “new arrangements”? Are the self- employed, carers and the unemployed included? They exclude zero-hours contracts and people who may have two part-time jobs. That is unfair and should be looked at.

I have grave reservations about the new scheme because people will be able to take out money and go on a world cruise or buy a Ferrari. That worries me. It will send the signal to many people who do not understand pensions that they can draw on that money, but at the end of the day they will be a lot worse off. I want an assurance that they will be protected. Financial advice is important, and that must be stated clearly.

A business man came to me and said that every business man in the UK received a letter from No. 10 Downing street telling them about the advantages of the latest Budget proposals on national insurance from 6 April. Will the Minister have a word with No. 10 Downing street to see to it that every single person in the country is sent a letter telling them how fundamental it is for them to look after their old age, and telling them that if they were to die in service, that would be looked at as far as their families are concerned? If I get that assurance, I will go back to my constituents and tell them that the debate has been worth while. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

My problem with what the Minister has said about zero-hours contracts is that surely a situation is possible in which someone falls below the threshold because there is not continuity of employment. That is a “suck it and see” situation. How would the Minister deal with that, 40 years down the road?

[Steve Webb]

A zero-hours contract is a contract. If someone has a contract of employment, in the weeks or months—whatever the period is—when they are above the earnings threshold, money goes into the pension. We will not insist on pension contributions being made in weeks when people do not earn any money. How would they put money in?

I think the zero-hours contract argument is greatly overdone, in the sense that the typical person on a zero-hours contract does 20 hours a week, on average. It may vary—when they earn a lot in a good week, they will put a lot into the pension; when they earn less, in a bad week, less will go in. As long as they get work through the contract they will be in a pension, possibly for the first time. I think that many people on zero-hours contracts will do better, because employers would not generally have put them in a pension at all. We are making that happen.

As to people with multiple jobs, a small number of people have jobs that, taken together, would put them into the system, but, taken separately, do not. Sometimes they will have children, and if they do they are credited in the state system anyway. Only 35 years of contributions are needed for a full pension, so someone might not make contributions for a number of years and still get a full pension.

The House of Lords, in about half an hour, I think, is going to talk about the issue in the debate on the Pensions Bill. We will gather more data on it. We think the issue is small, but clearly we need to ensure that we know what is going on. The number of women, for example, doing multiple part-time jobs went down in the past 12 months, so we do not think that the assumption that the numbers are all going up and that it will all get worse is borne out by the data. However, it is a serious point and we will look into it.

The hon. Gentleman is right that people often do not have a clue. It would be lovely to think that one letter from Downing street would fix things. I have two views on the matter. We need to make sure that pensions work for people who do not get it and never will, because with the best will in the world, expecting tens of millions of people to understand all this stuff is a heck of an ask. For me, we have to make sure that the system works for people who do not understand it and do not make active choices. That is where the state pension reforms come in.

amendment of the law

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 25th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

The compulsory jobs guarantee, which will last for the full five years of the next Parliament, will be based on what we have seen with the jobs growth Wales programme, whereby 80% of the jobs are in the private sector. A couple of weeks ago, the shadow Minister for employment—my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms)—and I visited a software company in Cardiff that had taken on 12 people through jobs growth Wales. It had made a huge difference to those young people, giving them hope and opportunity. The Government carp at our policies to get young people back to work, yet under them long-term youth unemployment has more than doubled. That is the Secretary of State’s record under this Government.

If the Chancellor really wanted this to be a Budget for savers, he would cap fees and charges on pensions and require insurance companies to provide free independent brokerage, as Labour has called for. Why did the Chancellor not do those things? It is because he is strong when it comes to standing up for the rich, but weak when it comes to standing up for the poor.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the biggest indictments of this Government and the Budget is the way in which they have adjusted taxation such that women will fund the bulk of the £14 billion the Government have to save? Women will have to save £11 billion—that is an indictment of this Government.

[Rachel Reeves]

My hon. Friend makes an important point: women are disproportionately hit by the changes introduced by this Government and are struggling with the rising cost of living more than anybody in this country. Moreover, the increasing costs of child care under this Government are making it harder for working parents, particularly working mums, to go back to work and make the contribution we need to the economy.

Four years ago, this Government said that debt would fall and that living standards would rise, yet the reverse has happened. They have broken their promise to balance the books by 2015 and they are set to borrow £190 billion more than they had planned. National debt is rising this year and it will rise next year and the year after that. There is more borrowing, more debt and more welfare spending under this Government.

--- Later in debate ---

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

The tragedy of the hon. Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) is that he actually believes what he said. I think that we need to be a bit more realistic now. For the past four years, we have heard the Conservatives blaming the previous Labour Government for the economic recession—[Interruption.] If Members want to follow North Korean doctrines such as that of the “Dear Leader”, they should just carry on, but let us get a little bit real.

The recession started in America. I am sure that my colleagues remember Lehman Brothers and Fannie Mae. In this country, we had a problem with Northern Rock, which the Labour Government tried to address. All of this talk about us running up a deficit is nonsense. Basically, we had to save the banks. When the Labour Government came to power in 1997, they cleared the national debt. They inherited the policy of 50p of every pound paid in tax going to pay off the national debt; crumbling schools; patients waiting for treatment in hospitals on trolleys; and declining manufacturing, especially in Coventry and the west midlands. Coventry was losing thousands of manufacturing jobs a week, and household names such as Standard Triumph were disappearing. I am sure that my colleagues remember that.

The previous Tory Government attempted to rebalance the economy. They moved from manufacturing for export to the service industries, which led to the crisis of 2008. When we left office, we still had our triple A rating. We had introduced low interest rates to help families and pensioners and quantitative easing to help the economy and we had bailed out the banks to protect savings. Growth was returning. We had persuaded George Bush, an American Republican conservative President, to pump billions into the American economy.

When the present Government were in Opposition, they said that they would maintain our spending levels. They opposed freedom for the Bank of England and said that the economy was over-regulated and that they wanted to cut red tape. That was their solution to a worldwide crisis that started in America and spread across the world. Their plan was to pretend that it was confined to Britain so that they could blame the previous Labour Government and justify breaking their election promises to the British people.

We must remember that 13 million people are still living below the poverty line in the UK and that 350,000 people used a food bank last year. Energy prices are high, housing is inadequate, wages are low and the Government are offering nothing at a time when many people are suffering. The Government have very little to offer.

My first major problem with the Budget is that it is extremely unfair to our young people—a group who have been undervalued and forgotten by this Government. The Government should be ashamed of how they have simply abandoned a whole generation, who will suffer the most during this recession. Some 282,000 people under the age of 25 have been jobless for a year or more. That figure is at its highest since 1993 and has almost tripled since 2008. More than 900,000 young people are still out of work. That is a serious problem and the Government seem completely complacent about it.

The Government are pleased about the employment picture, but they have not considered the experience of young people in this country. What about young people who can find only part-time work? What about young people who have work, but in a different field from that in which they are trained, or for which they are overqualified? The Local Government Association has warned that a third of all young people will be out of work or trapped in underemployment by 2018 if we are not careful.

A young person’s first job is just a statistic to this Government, but someone’s early career can make a huge difference to their life. For someone who went to university, studied hard and hoped for a job in a particular field, it can be highly disheartening to work in a non-graduate job or a completely unrelated field. Nearly half of recent graduates are in non-graduate jobs. That can be a blight on their future in competitive industries.

Similarly, when people are burdened with financial pressures, being able to find only part-time work is a problem. We are talking about hard-working, driven young people who want to get on but instead spend their whole lives in jobs that are well below their capacity. Yet the Government smugly pat themselves on the back for the employment figures.

Our young people are being abandoned. If the Government do not see that as a serious problem and begin to take action, we are looking at a lost generation. That reminds me all too well of life for young people under Thatcher.

The Government’s flagship Youth Contract has been declared a failure by their own advisers and the Work programme is finding work for only one in six of the long-term unemployed. That is simply not good enough. Labour’s compulsory jobs guarantee scheme, which would be funded by a tax on bank bonuses, would ensure a paid job for every young person under 25 who was out of work for more than a year.

It looks to me as though the Government have given up on young people, perhaps because they think that they have not forgotten about tuition fees, or perhaps because they know that Labour will give the vote to 16-year-olds and they will not. Either way, they have simply decided that the youth vote is not worth chasing and they are going after pensioners instead. That is disgraceful. Young people are being forgotten. A Government should be a Government for everybody, not just for the people who might vote for them or the people who they are afraid might vote for the UK Independence party. That is no way to run an economy.

The Budget does shockingly little to address the fact that women are so unfairly hit by the cuts. Women are bearing the brunt of the cuts and the Budget is no exception.

[Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

Women form the majority of employees in the public sector, so the cuts to that sector are doubly affecting women. Does that not show that the Government are going about this in an unfair way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Cunningham]

I agree with my hon. Friend. The majority of jobs created that are part time and have limiting career prospects have gone to overqualified women. Since 2010, male unemployment has decreased by 17% whereas female unemployment has risen by 7%. Disgracefully, women still tend to have lower end-of-career salaries than men and so often have lower pensions. Women are under-represented in the Government and that shows in their policies. What in the Budget will address that?

I want also to raise my concerns about local government finance. I have raised the issue on a number of occasions, but I cannot stress enough how much it matters. It needs to be made clear that a crisis is coming in many local authorities. Coventry city council has already lost approximately £45 million in core Government grant in the past three years and has had to implement a significant savings programme to minimise the impact on front-line services. That has, of course, put a huge strain on services. Coventry will face a—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order.

Payment Scheme (Mesothelioma)

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

I would be amazed if we did not discuss the matter again, as we have done over the years. It would be right and proper for us to do so. If we raise compensation payments to 80%, many people will receive more than they would have done through a civil court. The payment is an average, so some people would have received less in the civil courts. By raising the level from 75% to 80%, we have ensured that more people will receive more than they would have done if they had found their employer or their employer’s insurer.

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

I apologise for being a little late. It would be interesting to know the difference in costs between payments of 80% and 100%.

[Mike Penning]

I will write to the hon. Gentleman with that information. We debated the matter at length at each stage of the Bill, and I reiterate that the key is to stick within the 3% agreement, which is not being passed on to new business. The House agreed when we debated the subject that to pass on costs to new business would be improper.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Grant]

My hon. Friend has made an important point, but I believe that the enhanced checks and requirements that have been introduced by the football authorities are making some difference. I am also hopeful that the Football Association regulatory authority will ensure that changes in club ownership are much more fully scrutinised.

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

Is the Minister aware that 12 months ago her predecessor promised us that the Government would present proposals based on the Select Committee’s report? The current situation in Coventry is disgraceful: fans have to make a round trip of about 70 miles to Northampton. When will we see some real action to deal with that?

[Mrs Grant]

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

Job Insecurity

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

I shall come on to the point about the nature of the work and the jobs created. Of course it is a good thing for the hon. Lady’s constituents that there are more opportunities, but I shall return to that point.

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

Although we always welcome any improvement in employment, the fact remains that the purchasing power of people out of work has dropped about 5%, and that mostly hits women.

[Mr Umunna]

My hon. Friend is right. It is worth recalling that when my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition first talked about the cost of living crisis and the squeezed middle, Members on the Government Benches and their supporters ridiculed the very notion, but the existence of that living standards crisis is now undeniable. Indeed, since my right hon. Friend first talked about the squeezed middle, in 2011, I think, the people who compile the Oxford English Dictionary named it their word of the year, despite the fact that it is two words.

Words are one thing, but they are backed up by the reality of what we see in our communities. Ministers can do whatever jiggery-pokery they want with the figures, as the Chancellor did the other day when he claimed that the top decile of earners was the only decile that had lost out from his measures. In so doing, he miraculously forgot to take into account the huge tax cut he had given the top 1% at the same time as heaping a VAT rise on working families and taking away support from them.

The average employee is earning substantially less than when this Government came to office—over £1,600 less a year. It is important to remember that on Wednesday 13 February last year—almost a year ago—the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s questions in this House pledged that people would be better off in 2015 than in 2010, and we will hold him to that. The head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, who is often cited in all parts of the House, thinks differently. He said last month:

“We will be able to say definitively—I’m pretty sure—that, come 2015, average household incomes will be lower than they were pre-recession and lower than they were in 2010.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Umunna]

Of course it is good that more people are in work in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, but what is the nature of that work? Is it temporary or permanent, and what wages are people earning? That is the question I have posed.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

I seem to remember the Chancellor announcing, about 12 months ago, a bonus if people gave up their employment rights. I wonder what happened to that. It demonstrates that what this is really all about is the corrosion of people’s employment rights in this country and making life worse for them.

[Mr Umunna]

I will come on to that, but before that I will go through some of the things the Government have done to people’s rights in the workplace. They have increased the service requirement for claiming unfair dismissal from one to two years, depriving people of the right to seek justice when they have been wronged in the workplace. They have reduced compensatory rewards for unfair dismissal, which, as I have said in this House before, will impact in particular on those in middle-income occupations—the squeezed middle. They have also reduced the consultation period for collective redundancy and have sought to water down TUPE protections for people. I could go on.

We know that much of that was inspired by the 2011 report by the Conservative party donor and employment law adviser to the Prime Minister, Adrian Beecroft. By his own admission, in public evidence sessions in this House, Mr Beecroft said that his findings were based on conversations and not on a statistically valid sample of people—classic “off the back of a packet” stuff.

Never mind Beecroft, the best example of the Secretary of State failing to resist measures that increase insecurity in the workplace—my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) has just referred to this—is the shares for rights scheme announced by the Chancellor at the Conservative party conference in 2012. The scheme provides for new employer shareholder status, whereby in return for between £2,000 and £50,000-worth of shares in their employer, the employee gives up fundamental rights at work: the right not to be unfairly dismissed, rights to statutory redundancy pay, rights to request flexible working and so on.

For all sorts of reasons, this is a bad idea, so much so that there was cross-party opposition to it, with the former Conservative employment Minister, Lord Forsyth, describing it as having

“all the trappings of something that was thought up by someone in the bath”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 20 March 2013; Vol. 744, c. 614.]

What did the Business Secretary do about it? He not only waved through the scheme; he sponsored its passage through the House. Since then, take-up seems to be low —about 19 inquiries have been made to the Department—but what happened next? Up popped the Deputy Prime Minister at the beginning of the year—let us remember that the Business Secretary waved through the scheme and took it through Parliament—calling for the scheme’s abolition.

Let me get this right: the Deputy Prime Minister’s two Liberal Democrat colleagues—the Business Secretary and the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson)—guided the policy through the House just 10 months ago; the Deputy Prime Minister marched his Members through the Division Lobby, along with Conservative Members, to introduce it; and now the Deputy Prime Minister wants to take credit for saying he wants to scrap this disastrous scheme, which he set up in the first place.

I know the Liberal Democrats have a reputation for this sort of thing, but even by their standards this really does take trying to have your cake and eat it to a whole new level.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I am not aware that the FCO would make that sort of advice available to people, although it is obviously important that we advise people on security issues, as we do in relation to many nations. The hon. Lady is right to say that we can use culture and cultural links to advance many human rights issues. When I visited Moscow and St Petersburg in December to discuss the year of culture, I used that opportunity to meet a wide selection of human rights organisations, including those that support people on issues of domestic violence.

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

6. What plans she has to bring forward legislative proposals in respect of football governance and finance.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mrs Helen Grant)]

I will continue to work with football authorities to press for improvements in the game. They have made some significant changes, but my expectation is that they can, and will, make further progress. We will move to legislate if football fails in that task.

[Mr Cunningham]

I am sure the Minister knows about the dispute between Coventry city council and Coventry football club, since I and my colleagues have made representations to her Department in the past. The Culture, Media and Sport Committee report on football governance from July 2011 found the Football Association in need of urgent reform and called on the Government to introduce legislation if drastic changes were not made. In April 2013, the then sports Minister stated that he agreed with the Committee and that his officials had started working up a draft Bill. Where is the Bill? Let us have some action.

[Mr Speaker]

I think some of these matters could be usefully pursued through Adjournment debates, and will probably have to be.

Food Banks

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

I regret to say that the laughter from some of those on the Government Benches during this debate says more than words ever could. I want to praise the work of those in my constituency who are doing so much to help those in need. The commitment of the volunteers in the food banks throughout Copeland and across west Cumbria in towns such as Whitehaven, Millom and Workington has been remarkable, and I should like to say thank you to them on behalf of my constituents. I also want to thank those who donate the vast amounts of food, without which the food banks simply could not operate.

The final verdict on any Government is based on how they treat the poorest in society during the hardest of times. The rise in the need for food banks is a horrifying indictment of this Government’s record, and it demands urgent action. The complacency of those on the Government Front Bench and of Ministers in the other place is as distasteful and unedifying as anything I have ever witnessed in Parliament. In July, Lord Freud seemed to suggest that the increase in the number of people using food banks was simply a result of the increased prevalence of the food banks. He claimed that he did not know which came first: supply or demand. He also claimed that there was an infinite demand for what he called “free goods”. In order to access the services of a food bank, a person or family needs to be referred by health services, local authorities or other groups that look after their welfare. I am not going to try to second-guess what was going on in the Minister’s mind, but he seemed to be implying that there was somehow an ambition to reach hardship, and a desire and aim for people to reach poverty in order to get a free basket of shopping to get them to the end of the week.

In order better to inform Members on the Government Benches how food banks actually operate, I shall give them a quick rundown. People who are forced to turn to food banks can receive help only a limited number of times. They go to the local food bank not to do their full weekly shop but because they need the bare essentials in order to get by. Many of those people will already have made extremely difficult decisions, such as whether to sit in a cold room rather than go hungry. There is no more harrowing example of that than the fact that one in five mothers in the UK regularly—not just once or twice a week—skip meals to feed their children.

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

Can we deal once and for all with one particular issue? It is partly right to say that food banks have been around for about 10 years, but the truth of the matter is that the Churches set them up to help refugees who were waiting for their asylum status to be confirmed.

[Mr Reed]

My hon. Friend makes a telling point.

The circumstances in which people have to seek assistance to feed themselves and their families are not usually simple. They often involve a combination of issues, which manifest themselves in a great deal of pain and pressure for those involved. For example, I have constituents who are cancer patients who are forced to use food banks as a result of various combinations of Government policies. I wish I could say that those were isolated cases, but they are not. I wish I could say the situation was improving, but it is not. There are no signs of things getting better.