Income Tax (Charge)
Jim Shannon Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Liz Kendall)
The first Labour Budget in 14 years—the first ever Budget delivered by a woman Chancellor—shows the difference that this Labour Government are already making. We are fixing the foundations of the public finances to bring the stability that our economy needs, putting more money into people’s pockets after the worst Parliament for living standards on record, beginning to turn the corner on our vital public services, with more appointments in the NHS and more teachers in our schools, and making the long-term investments in infrastructure and skills that our country needs in order to grow our economy and seize the jobs and opportunities of the future.
In the Department for Work and Pensions, the message from this Budget is clear: we will tackle the unacceptable levels of fraud that we have inherited, because every pound of taxpayers’ money must be wisely spent and go to those who need help the most. We will drive up opportunity in every corner of the country with our plan to get Britain working, because this Labour Government believe that work is the key to building a better life and to growing our economy. We have made a start on driving down poverty too, because, unlike Conservative Members, we know that children cannot fulfil their potential without food in their bellies and a roof over their heads, and our country cannot fulfil its potential when the talents of so many bright children and young people are being denied.
Getting a grip on the public finances is the first step in delivering all these changes. Without strong foundations, we cannot deliver a thriving economy, decent public services or sustainable increases in living standards for families and pensioners. We did not choose to inherit the mess that we found in the public finances and our public services, but we have chosen to level with the public about the scale of the challenges and how we intend to deal with them.
Conservative Members have still not faced up to their responsibility for the state in which they left the country. There is a £22 billion black hole in the public finances this year, with billions of pounds overspent on a failing asylum hotel system. New hospitals, roads and train stations were announced, without the money to pay for them. Vital compensation schemes for infected blood and the Horizon scandal were set up, without the funds to deliver them. The country’s reserves were spent three times over.
That is before we even get to the state of our public services. Millions of patients have been left waiting for NHS treatment, often in agony and pain. Victims have been left waiting months or even years for justice in our courts. Our prisons are overflowing, and our schools literally crumbling. As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has said, this could have been a Budget where we looked at the state of the country but ducked the difficult decisions. We could have tried to kid the voters, paper over the cracks and then hope that something better somehow comes along. But we chose not to do that, because that is precisely the approach that got us into this mess in the first place, and because in politics, as in life, you do not deal with a problem by ignoring it, ducking it or pandering to it; you deal with problems by facing them head on.
We have chosen to get the public finances back on track, to protect the payslips of working people, to start turning the corner on our public services and to invest in the long-term infrastructure our country needs. In order to deliver that, we have made tax changes, which is never easy to do, and asked some businesses and wealthier people to pay some more. Hand in hand with this balanced approach, however, the Chancellor has set out tough new productivity, efficiency and savings targets of 2% this year for every single Department. Under this Labour Government, investment in our public services will always go hand in hand with reform, because we cannot keep spending taxpayers’ money on the same problems without changing the way we tackle them, and because public expectations and developments in AI and new technologies are transforming the way people interact in many aspects of their lives, and the public sector must respond to those changes, too.
The need for reform in our system of employment support and social security is urgent and it is real. I want to spell out clearly and honestly for the House the facts of the previous Government’s legacy of failure. Some £35 billion of taxpayers’ money has been lost to fraud and error since the pandemic—now standing at £10 billion a year. Our employment rate is still not back to pre-pandemic levels, making us unique in the G7 group of wealthy countries, and not in a good way. We have near-record levels of people trapped out of work due to long-term sickness—a staggering 2.8 million people, with rates far higher in some parts of the country such as the midlands and the north—and 420,000 more households are predicted to claim universal credit health benefits over the next five years, increasing from a third to a half of all universal credit claims. That is the legacy of the Conservatives. One in eight of all our young people are not in education, employment or training, with all the terrible long-term consequences we know that brings.
It is not just the economic cost of this failure that is unacceptable, with a predicted £26 billion increase in sickness and disability benefits over the next five years. Above all, there is the human cost to individuals and communities when millions of people are denied the opportunity to work and earn a decent standard of living, to make connections, to get skills and to build chances for a better life, with all the benefits that that brings. We do not accept that as the future for our country or our fellow citizens.
Instead, we choose a different path. It starts with our determination to deliver value for money for every pound of taxpayers’ money, so we will bring forward a new plan to drive down fraud and error in the welfare system. Our new Fraud, Error and Debt Bill will update the Department for Work and Pensions’ powers for the first time in 20 years, so that we can keep up with the new ways that fraudsters, including organised criminal gangs, are using to take public money, and so that our powers are brought into line with other public bodies such as His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.
We will use technology to alert us to people trying to scam the system, and to prevent errors from happening in the first place. We will recruit 3,000 more staff to crack down on fraudsters, with a focus on serious case reviews, and we will bring in new powers to recover debt, all with independent oversight and a guarantee that a human being will always take the final decision in any fraud case, to give everyone confidence in the system—something that the Conservatives utterly failed to do.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Many of us understand the need to have a more focused fraud law, and that is very important, but every other week people I represent come along to me and say that they have been overpaid for their employment and support allowance, their personal independence payments or their disability living allowance. They find themselves in an incredibly difficult position, not because they are trying to defraud or take money away from anyone; it is just a simple issue of their getting it wrong. What will be done to protect those people? This is really important. We are going to have a new fraud law, but let us make sure that we protect the innocent people who make a mistake.
Liz Kendall
I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. The technology we will put in place will be precisely so that we drive down not only fraud but errors in the system. He will know, for example, that we are trialling a new system for carers in which we text them if they are about to go over their allowance, so that we do not have the scandalous overpayments that caused such a problem under the previous Government.
The second major reform that we will bring in is our plan to get Britain working again. Our White Paper, which will be published in the coming weeks, will bring forward the biggest reforms to employment support in a generation, backed by an additional £240 million of investment. This will help us meet our ambition to achieve an 80% employment rate and to turn what is in reality a Department for welfare into a genuine Department for work. First, we will create a new jobs and careers service, overhauling our jobcentres so that they no longer focus predominantly on monitoring and assessing benefits but are a genuine employment service working with employers, colleges, public services and local leaders to help people to get work and get on in work.
Secondly, we will devolve powers to Mayors and local areas to join up the fragmented patchwork system of employment, skills and, crucially, health support to drive down economic inactivity and drive up employment, boosting jobs and growth in every corner of the country—because the man, or even woman, in Whitehall does not know what is best in Leicester, Liverpool or Leeds. Last, but by no means least, we will bring forward our new youth guarantee, so that every young person is earning or learning—no ifs, no buts—because we do not accept having a generation of young people without the skills or jobs they need to succeed, and we will never write off young people before they have even begun.
Our determination to help people get work and keep work does not stop there. I know only too well from my constituents and my friends how often women in their 50s and beyond are now caring for elderly and disabled relatives but wanting to work at the same time. I am proud that we are giving family carers the biggest ever boost to the amounts they can earn while still receiving carer’s allowance. That will allow them to increase their hours to the equivalent of 16 hours at the national living wage, so that they can balance work and family life. This comes on top of the independent review into the scandalous overpayment of carer’s allowance that I have already announced, led by the former chief executive of Disability Rights UK, Liz Sayce, to ensure that we learn the lessons from what happened so that it never happens again. As a lifelong champion of family carers, I am proud that we have made that announcement. Our plan to get Britain working is crucial to driving up opportunity and driving down poverty—a key priority of this Labour Government.
The fact that over 4 million children are now growing up poor, with more than 800,000 living in households forced to rely on food banks, is a stain on our society. My right hon. Friend the Education Secretary and I have already set out the framework for our bold, ambitious, cross-Government strategy to tackle child poverty. We will publish the results in the spring, but we will not wait to act, particularly for those facing the deepest poverty.
We have extended the household support fund and discretionary housing payments, with an additional £1 billion this year, so that local authorities can help families and pensioners who face the greatest hardship. Furthermore, we have introduced our new fair repayment rate to cap the level of debt repayments that can be taken from universal credit, putting an average of £420 a year into the pockets of 1.2 million of the poorest households, which will lift thousands of children and families out of poverty. When I was chair of Feeding Leicester, food banks told me that debt driven by universal credit deductions was one of the biggest reasons why people had to use food banks, which is why I know this is such an important change.
We are also substantially increasing the income of pensioners who have worked hard all their lives and who deserve security in retirement. Our commitment to the pension triple lock throughout this Parliament means that spending on the state pension is forecast to rise by over £31 billion. This includes a more than £470 rise in the new state pension from next April.
Unlike the previous Government, who left over 800,000 pensioners missing out on the pension credit to which they are entitled, we are delivering the biggest-ever drive to increase uptake. For the first time, we are contacting 120,000 people on housing benefit who may be eligible for pension credit and, to guarantee even greater uptake, we will merge pension credit and housing benefit for new claimants from 2026. The Conservatives first promised this in 2011, but they never delivered. That is the difference a Labour Government make.
There is still much more to do, but this Budget starts to turn the corner: fixing the foundations of our economy and public services, driving up opportunity and driving down poverty in every corner of the land. We are honest about the challenges we face and optimistic about the opportunities ahead. This is a real plan for real change. I commend this Budget to the House.
Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for North Somerset (Sadik Al-Hassan) on a powerfully delivered maiden speech and wish him well in this House. I thank him for his kind words about his predecessor, Dr Liam Fox, who was a true champion of this House.
The Budget of broken promises came as a hammer blow to communities up and down the land, but before I get into the detail of that, and in the interest of balance and fairness, I would like to thank the Chancellor for one of the measures in it. Following FairFuelUK’s campaign, The Sun’s “Keep It Down” campaign, and indeed, the campaign led by my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti), the freeze on fuel duty, which the last Conservative Government implemented for so many years, will continue. It is very apparent to me that petrol and diesel are overtaxed as it is, and working people up and down the land absolutely depend on being able to afford a tank of fuel to get the kids to school, go to work and go about their daily lives. As a request ahead of next year’s Budget, I ask the Chancellor to consider fixing a double taxation in the system: the point at which VAT is applied to petrol and diesel. At the moment, it is applied after fuel duty, rather than before; we therefore pay VAT not just on the petrol and diesel itself, but on the fuel duty that has been put on top of it.
There is so much to dislike in this Budget of broken promises, beginning with the increase in employers’ national insurance contributions, which is a direct tax on jobs. It is a tax on small and large businesses alike, and it is a tax on our general practitioners—I am sure I am not alone in this House in already having correspondence on this issue with many of the GPs in my constituency. There is the perversity of putting bus fares up to £3, scrapping the Conservatives’ £2 bus fare cap. Working people up and down the land rely on buses; it is only in Labour’s world that putting the bus fare up means getting more people to work. The £40 billion tax hike is going to lead to higher inflation, lower wages and increased Government debt.
For my constituency of Mid Buckinghamshire, though, the very worst part of this Budget was the full-frontal attack on our farmers and agricultural communities. The changes to agricultural property relief will cause family farms up and down the land to have to sell such a huge proportion of their farm in order to meet that tax bill that those farms themselves may well become unviable.
Jim Shannon
I commend the hon. Gentleman on that comment. Every farmer in Northern Ireland will be impacted by this change. The Ulster Farmers’ Union—I declare an interest as a member—has said that the change is universally discredited and universally opposed. The threshold for agricultural relief for farms should have been higher—perhaps £4 million or £5 million, not £1 million, which brings everybody into the equation.
Greg Smith
As ever, the hon. Gentleman has hit the nail exactly on the head. In its briefing, which I am sure all Members have received, the National Farmers Union points out that the Treasury’s own figures on who will get caught up in the APR changes are fundamentally wrong, because they include a lot of very small-scale areas—perhaps a private residence with one or two fields or a very small number of livestock. That is not what any of us would define as a working farm. In reality, when all those family farms are brought into the numbers, the vast majority of our food producers who contribute to food supply chains will get caught up in those changes.
When the Chancellor was on the BBC on Sunday morning, she said that the individual claim for agricultural property relief is now £1 million, but if a farm is owned by two people, that allowance could be transferred to the other person. Some confusion needs to be ironed out here, because unlike the nil-rate band and residential nil-rate band, the policy paper entitled “Summary of reforms to agricultural property relief and business property relief” published on 30 October this year states that
“any unused allowance will not be transferable between spouses and civil partners.”
Perhaps in summing up the Minister can clear up that confusion caused by the Chancellor on the Kuenssberg show.
The APR changes are not the only changes that will hammer our farming families and agricultural communities. I am sure there is a joke somewhere along the lines of “When is a pick-up truck not a pick-up truck?”, but it is no laughing matter for farmers. For them, it is just a basic bit of equipment that they need to operate, but this Government are hammering them on the cost of that equipment if it happens to have rear seats. As I raised earlier today in this House during the urgent question, the Government’s carbon tax will put up the price of fertiliser by between £50 and £75 a tonne. Either that is going to have a direct impact on the cost of food, or the Government are asking farmers—already operating on incredibly tight margins, often with no profit at all—just to swallow that extra cost. I urge them to reconsider.
Other measures in the Budget that are clearly wrong and the Government must U-turn on include VAT on private school fees. The vast majority of parents I talk to in my constituency who choose to send their children to independent schools scrimp and save and make sacrifices in order to give their children that opportunity. An additional 20% in fees makes that unaffordable for those parents, and when I talk to representatives of independent schools in my constituency some are saying that they can see a path to having to close their doors. I know that a lot of Labour Members would probably quite like that outcome, but the reality is that it will be denying children opportunity and denying parents choice, and it will have the knock-on impact of class sizes in my kids’ school—and, I am sure, every other hon. Member’s kids’ school in the state sector—going up. That will cause overcrowding and put pressure on our state schools. This is all before I come on to the other problems in this Budget, not least the cruel attack on our pensioners through the withdrawal of the winter fuel payment.
Lastly, just to prove how bizarre and simply unserious the Government are about value for money, they have chosen someone as their new value-for-money tsar who is inextricably linked to one of the most inefficient and wasteful projects ever to come out of the British state: HS2. How on earth can someone so linked to that project be considered an arbiter of value for money?
Carer’s Allowance
Jim Shannon Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the right hon. Gentleman for his endeavours in the debate, which we support, and on his compassion for carers given his own experience. Someone who cares for their parents all day and then works a couple of hours in the evening is precluded from receiving carer’s allowance. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that those people, who do not get carer’s allowance because they happen to work a few hours, should qualify?
Ed Davey
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that point. That should certainly be part of the review, but one or two other issues, which I will talk about, are critical to reform probably even before that.
At just £81.90 a week, carer’s allowance is the lowest benefit of its kind. For someone doing 35 hours of caring a week—the minimum period for eligibility—that is just £2.34 an hour. It is not just the low rate of the carer’s allowance that worries me but the fact that the eligibility rules are inflexible and very badly designed, chief among them being the earnings limit of £151 a week. Even for someone on minimum wage, that is just 13 hours and 20 minutes a week. The earning limit operates like a cliff edge. As soon as someone makes £151.01 a week, they lose the whole carer’s allowance—every penny of the £81.90. It acts as a significant barrier and a major disincentive to work. It means carers on low incomes cannot work a bit more to help make ends meet, so it is bad for them, bad for the person they are caring for, bad for their employers and bad for the economy.
But here is where things get worse. There are tens of thousands of carers who go slightly over the earnings limit, mostly without realising it. Maybe they pick up an extra shift, happen to get an end-of-year bonus, or understandably do not realise the way carer’s allowance operates in such a daft way. Even though the Department for Work and Pensions gets regular alerts from His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs when people go over the earnings limit, it has not been telling carers and it keeps paying carer’s allowance until one day, out of the blue, the carer gets hit with demands to repay those overpayments, which may have built up over months and years due to the DWP’s own inaction.
Back in July, I told the Prime Minister about one of my constituents, Andrea, who lives in Chessington. She is a full-time carer for her mum. Back in 2019, Andrea decided to go back to work part-time in a charity shop—mainly for her mental health, she told me. She informed the DWP at the time and it continued her payments. Five years later, it wrote to her and said that no, she now had to repay £4,600. Andrea says she feels “harassed, bullied and overwhelmed.” She now does just six hours’ unpaid work a month to avoid going over the earnings limit and getting into more debt. She says the whole thing makes her “want to give up work and give up caring.”
Alison McGovern
I will come to the review that we will be conducting, but let me make the general point that we in the Government ought to be able to understand the realities of life and take that into account.
The position that I have described makes the dire situation we have inherited all the more shameful. Family carers are being pushed to breaking point. They have too often been forced to quit jobs that they want to keep and could keep with the right support, which isolates them and shrinks our workforce. With the right support, we could help carers and help our economy as well. To rub salt into the wound, we have inherited a system whereby busy carers, already struggling under a huge weight of responsibility, have been left having to repay large sums of overpaid carer’s allowance, sometimes amounting to thousands of pounds. It seems as though what is supposed to be a safety net designed to catch those in need was instead designed to catch them out.
Jim Shannon
For some time constituents of mine have found that they are due to repay an overpayment. I always ask them whether they remember when they made their complaint. All telephone conversations with the Department are recorded, so there is a way of making it clear that the fault lies not with the applicant but with the Department. Is there also a way of ensuring that those who have been penalised unfairly for following the Department’s advice should not have to pay that money?
Alison McGovern
As the hon. Member knows, the Department is not responsible for the delivery of social security benefits in Northern Ireland, but I am sure that Northern Ireland’s Department for Communities will be keeping a close eye on the debate and will want to take his points into account.
This problem is one of the numerous ways in which our social security system is failing the people of this country, with 2.8 million left out of work because they are unwell and more than 4 million children growing up poor, and we have therefore moved fast to fix the foundations of the DWP. That includes our setting up a taskforce to tackle child poverty, extending the household support fund for six months, and holding the first meeting of our new Labour Market Advisory Board. The board’s expertise and fresh thinking will help us break down barriers to work, such as an inability to balance paid work with family care.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jim Shannon Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Sir Stephen Timms
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Performance is reviewed regularly and there are customer satisfaction surveys, but unlike the previous Government, this Government want to publish performance data so that everybody can see what is going on.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister very much for his response. I think everyone wishes for claimants to be able to get job opportunities without finding themselves in a financial mess due to having to pay out for travel costs when they should be reimbursed. This is a big issue in my constituency in Northern Ireland. Will the Minister help directly those constituents who have been accordingly disadvantaged?
Sir Stephen Timms
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I am not familiar with the arrangements in Northern Ireland, but certainly in the rest of the UK it is very clear that contractors ideally need to pay up-front, buy tickets and give them to the jobseeker before they embark on their journey, or, if not, reimburse them very quickly on production of a receipt.
Winter Fuel Payment
Jim Shannon Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the Winter Fuel Payment.
I am pleased to see you in the Chair, Dr Huq. Charities, medics, academics, economists and constituents have evidence showing why the Government must ensure that mitigation is in place to protect pensioners in fuel poverty this winter. Winter fuel payments have provided a layer of protection, with £300 for the over-80s, which is insufficient for some, but excessive for those who need no energy support. Housing costs, food prices and energy costs have exacerbated the situation, leading to the hardest of choices for the 2.1 million pensioners in poverty—a legacy of the last Government. However, once people secure their home, they have to ensure that they can eat and keep warm, and we need the Government to provide an assurance that pensioners will have the help they need to stay warm and well. I know that the Government are working hard, but in 20 days the energy price cap will rise, and people are looking for answers, as am I.
Governments do not choose their inheritance, but they can determine the future. On discovering a £21.9 billion legacy deficit, the Chancellor was right to protect the economy and to prevent interest rates and mortgage rates from soaring in the way they did during the Truss-Kwarteng experiment. However, the winter fuel payment is in a different league.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the hon. Lady for bringing this matter forward, and I suspect there is no one here who does not support what she has said. Does she agree that the way this change is being foisted on our constituents, with no time for them even to save towards winter fuel bills, is reminiscent of the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign scandal, which the ombudsman said was a failing? Does she agree that the Government must consider putting off any changes until winter 2025, and that any changes should be targeted at those who can afford to lose the winter fuel payment?
Rachael Maskell
A Labour Government must always protect the poorest in our society.
The total saving for this year—£1.3 billion—is 0.1% of the total Treasury spend. However, when only 1.6 million pensioners not on pension credit need energy support, that drops to 0.04% of the Government’s budget, assuming that all get the top rate of £300, although most will get less. If we add in additional health and care costs, the saving shrinks again.
Social Security
Jim Shannon Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Mel Stride
The hon. Gentleman is entirely wrong. We went into the election promising the triple lock plus. Unlike his party, under which millions of pensioners are going to be dragged into income tax spend, many of them for the first time, we were prepared to stand up and say that we would not do that.
Jim Shannon
I commend the right hon. Gentleman and his party for bringing forward this issue, which is massive for my constituents and those across the whole United Kingdom. I say this with respect to the Labour party: this policy does not conform to any Labour party policies that I have seen in the past. Pensioners who have contacted me say that they are concerned because the threshold is too low, because pension credit will take nine weeks to process even if it gets to the 28% who are eligible in Northern Ireland, and because the £400 that the Labour Government have approved will not come until spring next year. Those are three reasons why the motion has to be supported.
Mel Stride
The hon. Gentleman is entirely right, as always, and I completely agree with every word that he has just said.
We are the party of the triple lock, and we were the party of the triple lock plus. We are the party that has raised the state pension by £3,700 since 2010, and we are the party that has seen 200,000 fewer pensioners in absolute poverty since we came to office. That is now going to go into reverse.
I will now, rather more gently and rather more quietly, make an impassioned plea to Government Members: look to your conscience. You know in your hearts that these measures are wrong, that the Labour party has broken its promises, and that these measures will lead to untold hardship for millions of elderly and vulnerable people right up and down the country. You now have an opportunity to join with us and put a stop to it.
Disabled People on Benefits: EHRC Investigation
Jim Shannon Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Mims Davies
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the nature of disability and need has changed, which is what I was trying to draw out earlier. Different types of needs are coming our way. We all know from our own constituency casework about the support that disabled people need in any realm, and it is about understanding the different needs and appreciating that needs change. I can assure him that the Department works closely with healthcare assessors, and has put in a new process to allow personal independence payments to be paused when an appointment has already been scheduled—for example, if we need to have additional information. We are very aware that claimants’ needs are different—hence the Buckland review of autism. We know that a huge number of autistic people are very keen to work, but not enough of them do, and this is at the heart of our understanding. I think the hon. Gentleman and I share the same view on this issue. The Department will need to make changes and develop its understanding, and I want to reassure the House that we come in the spirit of learning.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The Minister is always compassionate and understands the issues, as we can tell from the way she responds. As I often say, however, the benefits system leads to incredible frustration. When those who are disabled have their applications refused, they go to appeal. The biggest issue in my office is benefits, including appeals; we have one staff member who does nothing else during the five-and-a-half-day week that she works. Although we recognise that DWP staff do a good job, there needs to be a better understanding of how the system works. When someone fills in their application, there needs to be a better understanding of what it means to have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, osteoarthritis, diabetes, blood pressure problems, back pain, chronic pain. Those are the issues. When we win 85% of appeals, it indicates that perhaps the first decision was not right.
Mims Davies
I thank the hon. Gentleman for the way he approaches this matter. It also gives a chance for all of us to thank our casework teams who do so much, and indeed all the staff across DWP. They know that our customers vary. They know that, at times in their lives, they need additional support. That is why we have those specialist services, roles and procedures in place, from the DWP visiting service to the advanced customer support senior leaders. We have the serious case panel review, and we have the customer experience survey. We are always listening and learning, and there is a continuous need to do that. On fluctuating conditions, which other Members have mentioned, we have put a better understanding of needs and diagnoses at the heart of our engagement on reforms, and that is what disabled people have told me as well.
Women’s State Pension Age: Ombudsman Report
Jim Shannon Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to speak today on behalf of the WASPI women. Every right hon. and hon. Member who has spoken in this debate has done so with a heartfelt desire on behalf of their constituents, and I wish to do the same. A lot has been said, but I want to offer a Northern Ireland perspective in the debate. It unites the voices of those in this Chamber when we speak on behalf of all our constituents within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
In Northern Ireland there are some 77,000 WASPI women—ladies who deserve to have their pension but have been denied it. Tragically, many have passed away. In my Strangford constituency we have approximately 5,000 who should qualify as WASPI women. Although I am the only Northern Ireland MP in the Chamber now, I know that many of my colleagues from other parties have spoken on this issue. I had a well-attended debate on 12 March; it was unfortunate that in that debate Members only had about three minutes. In today’s debate at least Members have had at least 10 or perhaps even 15 minutes, depending on when they came in. I asked a question on the same issue on 25 March in this Chamber and again on 2 May.
This debate is vital, but—and I say this almost as a question—is it necessary? Hon. Members will say, “What do you mean, is it necessary? That’s almost a contradiction.” But it is not. The debate is not necessary: the problem is crystal clear and undisputed, at least by every person who has spoken. That being the case, we should recognise this and grant the compensation in a timely manner. That is what the debate is about. That is what we are asking for, and everyone from all political parties is united on that. We have the ombudsman’s report. Why, then, do we need to debate this issue again today, if the problem and the solution are clear and expected? That is the way I see it.
I congratulate the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), as I often do, on setting the scene; I know this issue has been a passion of hers in this House. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), who will sum up for the SNP at the end of the debate, on his Bill, which I have signed, along with others. The Government could grasp that Bill, push it through and have it all done by July. I also did not know until this debate, when the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) spoke, that he and the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), who is not in his place, had a Bill or a process ready to bring forward. Would it be onerous or unrighteous of me to say that perhaps that is something that could be used as a text to move it forward? Right hon. and hon. Members have brought lots of ideas forward.
I say this with great respect to the Minister, who is an honest man and a gentleman, and who does his job well: the Government are dragging their heels. As we have said on multiple occasions, each day that passes means that another lady has been wronged. My constituents and others are missing out not simply on justice—that is reason enough—but on the quality of life that should have been theirs. Parties across the Chamber have come together to reiterate that, but the power for change—and the reason change is not coming forward—lies with the Government. That is the way I see it.
On the many occasions I have spoken about the WASPI ladies, I have given the example of a constituent of mine who was a school cleaner—everybody’s constituencies had school cleaners like her. That lady cleaned the school toilets until she was 60, with arthritis and pain. She spent most of her time on her knees. It is always good to spend time on your knees, as long as it is in prayer, but that lady spent her time on her knees on a floor with cold tiles, and she ended up with arthritis and pains. That is the issue. She focused on the end date when she could stop putting herself in pain and start enjoying her retirement without having to worry about turning her heating on because she could rely on her pension. That lady never had a sick day in 30 years—boy, what a record! She turned up every day for 30 years to clean the toilets at the school. She deserves credit for that.
We know that lady’s generation well. There is no shame in it, but she felt shame about taking benefits, and she worked hard for the entitlement to a well-earned pension, which she thought she was getting. That pension was about nine months or a year ahead of her, when suddenly it turned out to be six years ahead of her. What—really? There needs to be action. That was done to her without so much as a by your leave or a financial plan. I hear people saying, “Well, they knew about the plan,” but many of my WASPI women did not know at all. I cannot remember which Member said that 60% of people did not know about their financial options. My constituent’s option was to continue working on her knees, scrubbing, with tears in her eyes and in pain, which meant that she had to apply for sick pay.
This Government did that to her—and I say that with respect to the Minister. That is the reason why it happened. The ombudsman said that it was not right to do that to my constituent, and that we should compensate that honourable lady and the 5,000 other WASPI women in my constituency, as well as all those across this great United Kingdom. We are no further forward in giving her that entitlement. Meanwhile, those extra years of hard labour have taken their toll physically and emotionally. I genuinely have no words to say to that lady other than: “I am sorry. I continually ask for compensation for you and the others. I am sorry that the Government got it wrong. And I am sorry that it still is not rectified.”
I do not want to heap coals of fire upon the shoulders or the head of the Minister, but the responsibility for this lies with the Government. My words to the Government are clear and direct, and I have plenty of them, but they can all be summed up in a few words: do the right thing, and do it now. That is my request. The Government know their obligation, understand their duty, and accept the rationale behind that, so all we need now is the action to make this happen.
We have seen how quickly compensation can be sorted, so why are we in this position where we are no further forward and doing the right thing seems not to be a priority? It needs to be a priority—it needs to be a priority today, following this debate. It needs to be a priority before the summer recess, whenever that comes. That is the target date that I am asking the Minister to aim for, because we need to give hope to our constituents and those WASPI women who have resolutely, courageously, and in many cases physically, withstood the test of time.
I believe that compensation should be granted in the form of a lump sum to help pay off any outstanding loans or debts, and there should then be an enhanced payment for a clear and set period of time. We have heard stories today of people who made their plans on the grounds of the pension plan that they had, only to find out that they had been disempowered, and all the plans they had made had to be scrapped. They lost their houses, their jobs and their health. What are we doing to help those people?
Margaret Greenwood
The hon. Gentleman is making a sensitive and excellent speech. Does he agree that this is not only about the loss of a pension from the age of 60, the fact that people have not been able to plan and so forth? For many women, their occupational pension will have been tied to the date of their retirement or their state pension—it varies a lot, depending on what the pension scheme is. Some women have lost thousands upon thousands of pounds as a result of this decision.
Jim Shannon
I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. The occupational pension is another factor; it is incorporated in the plan that these people have made for their future. It is wonderful how you make a plan for the future and then the Government scupper it on you! All of a sudden, these ladies have found themselves in difficult circumstances, so I believe it is necessary to have a compensation scheme in place to help all of those ladies.
I will conclude with one more comment, ever mindful of the time limit that we all indicated we would keep to. I understand the magnitude of such a scheme, but we were able to get support quickly to households across the UK for cost of living and energy payments—something that I commend the Government on. That can be done on many occasions; we just need the commitment to make it happen. I know that the Government have the ability and the capacity to roll out all these schemes, so along with almost every other colleague in this House today, I sincerely ask that we prioritise finding a compensation formula and rolling it out. These women, our constituents—brave, courageous women—deserve no less, and we must ensure that we give them no less.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jim Shannon Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Jo Churchill
I join my hon. Friend in that, because any way we can help lift skills across the piece, such as through boot camps and workplace academy programmes, to help people into high-skill, well-paid jobs, particularly in areas where perhaps that has not been the norm, is to be welcomed and congratulated.
Jim Shannon
May I first thank the Minister for what she is going to do for the Sittingbourne and Sheppey constituency as that is absolutely brilliant? However, I would love to see the same thing happening across all of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and in particular in Strangford. Could the Minister work with the local colleges, which can provide opportunity and skills? It is better—
Mr Speaker
Order. I can save the Minister replying. The question is only about filling job vacancies in Sittingbourne and Sheppey, not the rest of the world. Let us move on. That was a good effort but, out of 10, I would give it one.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I will get it right this time, Mr Speaker.
What discussions has the Minister had with the Department for Communities, back home in the Northern Ireland Executive, in relation to the extreme poverty surges witnessed in the winters of 2022 and 2023?
Mel Stride
As the hon. Gentleman will know, the Northern Ireland Executive are at liberty to make their own arrangements on most of the benefits for which the Department for Work and Pensions is responsible. However, they generally choose to go with our decisions. I assure him that officials work very closely with their counterparts in Northern Ireland to make sure that we take the needs of the Northern Irish people into account when we take those decisions.
Pension Schemes
Jim Shannon Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank and commend the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for leading today’s debate. I attended his half-hour Westminster Hall debate on this issue and supported him when he outlined his case in the short time he had. He has done exceptionally well today in doing the same thing, but in much more detail.
It is important to discuss pension schemes, and to ensure they are properly understood and regulated. There are still so many people out there who are misinformed, or do not really understand how pensions work or what their purpose is, so I am glad to be able to debate this issue. The Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), referred to auto-enrolment. I want to refer to it, too. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland set out a lot of detail, as did the Chair of the Select Committee and others, referring to a number of companies. Most people will obtain a pension at some stage of their lives and, through employment, will actively pay into it.
One point I would like to make, and which the Chair of the Select Committee referred to, relates to the provision of pensions for our young people and what steps we can take to ensure they understand that provision. This is another issue that I believe should be taught within learning for life and work. It should be in the curriculum and a part of our focus. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland said that he had his first pension at the age of 22. I had my first pension at the age of 18. My mother took me down to John Thompson —he is not here any more—who was the pension man in Ballywalter. I said, “I don’t need one.” He said, “Oh, you do.” And I signed up. Of course, you never say no to your mum. I certainly didn’t and I do not regret that. Over the years, and after taking out other pensions, all of a sudden they are quite valuable and exceptionally good to have. Also when I was an 18-year-old, my mother took me down to the Northern Bank—now Danske Bank —and opened an account for me. She gave me £10 to start the account. Way back in the ’60s, that was quite a lot of money. You could probably have bought a wee car at that time. I am not sure what state the car would have been in, but I think you could have bought one for £10 or thereabouts. The point I am making is that it is important to save and to have a pension.
We ask young people to look to their future and to start to plan, but there is little provision within the education system to teach them about pensions, savings and mortgages, and there should be. I know that that is not the Minister’s direct responsibility, but perhaps he could give some assurance on whether it could become a subject for the curriculum. I have had conversations with my staff on the importance of paying into pensions. My youngest staff member’s response was exactly that. She bought her first house, saving for almost a decade for the deposit and paying thousands of pounds for mortgage advisers, insurance, solicitors fees and lenders fees. Young people are just about surviving to live in the present, but there is now an expectation that they must save in a pension for their futures. The purchase of a house is such a critical factor that a pension often takes second place. What steps can be taken to ease the financial burdens on our young people and enable them to see the benefits of taking advantage of pensions?
I recently asked a parliamentary question on considerations being given to a potential opt-in scheme for young people under the age of 18. There is massive cause for this. Another two girls in my office have been working since the age of 13—part time, obviously, but still working—and so many young people out there are employed from as young as that. Why shouldn’t they reap some sort of benefit from working at that age? I understand the Government are to make a change to the Pensions (Extension of Automatic Enrolment) Act 2023 to enable that to happen in the “mid-2020s”. As we quickly approach that, perhaps the Minister could give an update on the matter and where it stands.
My last point on pensions relates to the WASPI women. This is not the subject of today’s debate, and there will be a debate on it in a fortnight’s time. I secured a debate last month in Westminster Hall on the issue. Although it is not the pension issue for today’s debate, the scale of the issue and its popularity highlights the importance of planning pensions. That is the point I want to refer to. The Minister will be aware that compensation is owed, but, given the nature of today’s debate, let me gently remind him that it is possible for lessons to be learnt. In setting the scene, the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland spoke of what had gone wrong and the need to ensure that it would not happen again, and we hope that, as a result of this debate and others, the issue of the WASPI women will never happen again either.
The incentive to save for the future must be there for people of all ages, not just young people but those in their 30s and 40s who voluntarily do not pay into their pensions because they do not think it worth their while, given the current cost of living and the many demands on their purses. It is also worth noting that some employers match employee contributions, while others pay considerably more. The incentive must be there for people to prepare for life after work, and I firmly believe that that should start in the LLW and careers sector of the education system. We should “learn them early”. We should reach young people in the right way and prepare them for the world that is to come, and pensions are clearly a part of that.
Universal Credit: Farmers
Jim Shannon Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered universal credit and farmers.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Mrs Murray.
This morning for breakfast I had oat clusters, and for lunch I had a cheese panini with some salad—it is a good day when I remember to eat. So far today, without even thinking about it, I have had produce from oat and wheat farmers, dairy farmers and a variety of vegetable farmers, and I am suspect everyone here could say something similar if they stopped to fill in a food diary. Farming is integral to our day-to-day lives.
When we are down here in Westminster, farming might seem very far away—there is not a field in sight—but my constituency of North East Fife is rural and has a wide variety of agricultural businesses. Next month, the annual Fife Show will attract farming from across North East Fife and the surrounding areas, and bring that community very visibly together. It is therefore not surprising that I am here today talking about this issue, given the constituency I represent, but it affects even MPs representing urban constituencies: farming is quite literally the lifeblood of our very being. Without farmers, we would not have food. I say that at the start of a debate on universal credit to drive home the very important point that we must not lose sight of the needs of our farmers, and must do everything we can to support them. Surely that is what the Government’s Farm to Fork strategy is all about.
The state of our food supply chains mean that some farmers need benefits to boost their incomes, and that is deeply worrying. That is a debate for another day and another Department. The fact that some need support is why we are here today to ask the Minister and the Department to design a system that works with, and not against, farmers.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The hon. Lady always brings subjects to Westminster Hall and the Chamber that are of particular interest to me. I declare an interest: I am a member of the Ulster Farmers’ Union, and we own a farm outside Greyabbey, so I understand the issues and the implications of what she is saying. Does she agree that farmers may have three good months of income—not necessarily profit—followed by nine months of hardship, so the monthly system is not appropriate for their seasonal work? Rather than making farming viable, the Government aid through the universal credit system may put people off and make farming untenable for families. That is incredibly concerning as it affects our food security, which this debate is also about—food security and delivering for the nation.
Wendy Chamberlain
The hon. Gentleman always gets straight to the key issues in his interventions. I will talk about a number of the things that he referenced. Indeed, the monthly aspect of universal credit is one of the key challenges.
Let me start with the basic point: the Government are asking the vast majority of farmers to go through the process of transitioning to universal credit from tax credits now, right in the middle of peak farming months. For example, it is the middle of lambing season. Let me be blunt: sheep farmers do not currently have the time to sort through accounts, visit the jobcentre or have interviews by phone. We all recognise that farming is not a 9 to 5 job where appointments can be scheduled. The sheep three fields down having a difficult birth will not be able to hold on just because the jobcentre is due to call. The farmer who cares deeply for their animals and also cannot afford to lose income if things go wrong will not be able to stay in the farmhouse to wait for that call. They will be down in the field with the sheep to keep an eye on things and intervene if need be. Even if there is a phone signal, which is not always guaranteed, a farmer can hardly talk through the viability of his or her business while elbow deep in that sheep.
I appreciate that that sounds slightly comical, but it is deeply frustrating for farmers and incredibly stressful when they are worried about losing their income. It shows a failure within the DWP system to understand how farming works, so I ask the Minister: what thought and consideration was given to farmers when the decision to roll out the transition to universal credit was made? I know the National Farmers Union raised concerns about the transition as early as 2018 in evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee. Did the Government pay any attention to that? Even if they are talking to the NFU, I cannot see the outcome in those policy decisions.
I recently tabled a written question asking for an impact assessment on how the roll-out of universal credit to farmers has been done. The response—I will be honest—did not exactly answer the question, so I will make the assumption that the answer is no. If I am wrong, I am happy to be corrected on that, and I hope the Minister will use her time to set out the findings from that assessment. But the response I received did point me to the latest findings from the “Move to Universal Credit”, in which there was only one paragraph relevant to farmers—an observation that additional checks on self-employed claimants may be a factor in the low take-up of universal credit. Obviously, that is a part of it, but it somewhat understates the issue, and it also conflates all self-employment businesses. Farming is very different to somebody, for example, running a shop, selling handmade products, or a tradesperson such as a joiner. Here we are: I am going to assume that the Minister has heard the warnings from the NFU, has seen correspondence from MPs, has spoken to farmers herself, has had her officials carry out research into the farming industry, and has seen the media coverage on the radio, specialist farming news and print media.
In any case, I will explain why universal credit fails farmers. Universal credit does not account for variable incomes and does not allow for those incomes to be averaged out. The very nature of farming means that farming income varies significantly through the year, or even over multiple years. I want to go back to that sheep farmer who is busy saving their animals and bringing new ones into the world, rather than speaking to a work coach. That lamb will not be ready for sale until much later in the year, meanwhile the sheep and the lamb will require food, shelter, water, shearing and possibly extra hands on the farm to help out in the busy months. An animal farmer might in some cases try their hardest to grow crops to be harvested in each season, but often that is not practical. Not all areas are suitable for all produce, and even if they were, economies of scale mean that it can be more profitable to specialise. That does not mean there is no work that needs to be done until harvest and sale time; just that the work done by farmers does not get paid for many months. Meanwhile, seed, fertiliser and fuel costs are all going up. That is arguably one of the reasons why some farmers need extra support in the first instance.